As someone Urban Meyer said he respected immensely as an offensive mind—"I think that coach is terrific"—Kevin Wilson delivered perhaps the most profound statement when asked how his Indiana offense plans to attack rugged Ohio State.
“[We've] gotta cross the line with the G, which is going to be hard to do,” Wilson said Tuesday on the Big Ten teleconference.
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| INDIANA HOOSIERS |
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3-1, 1-0 B1G ROSTER / SCHEDULE |
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3:30 – SATURDAY, OCT. 8 OHIO STADIUM COLUMBUS, OHIO |
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ESPN WATCHESPN |
Extremely simplistic yet deep, mainly for the fact the team his 3-1 Hoosiers face on Saturday is defending at an abnormally efficient rate through the first third of the 2016 season. The Buckeyes have nine interceptions, four of which they returned for a touchdown in route to a 4-0 start and No. 2 national ranking. Luke Fickell's unit scored 24 points in four games and allowed just 23 in victories over Bowling Green, Tulsa, Oklahoma and Rutgers.
“If their offense wouldn't have played, I think they'd still be undefeated because I think their defense has outscored their offense,” Wilson said.
Such is life for the sixth-year head coach less than a week removed from the biggest win in his tenure. The Hoosiers topped Michigan State in overtime 24-21 last week in Bloomington, a victory that got Ohio State's attention. Now, he attempts to secure a win that would shock the college football world.
“I think they're a very good scheme and the last four years, the level of quality of player just continues to get better and better,” Urban Meyer said on Wednesday after practice. “I think they got an excellent coaching staff and you can see some really positive, really good things on videotape.”
The Buckeyes are a different animal than the Spartans, however. Though Mark Dantonio's club beat Meyer in Columbus a year ago, the Buckeyes are fast, deep and lead the nation in a host of statistical categories on both sides of the ball. The competition outside of a trip to Oklahoma has not been great but Wilson doesn't care. He knows what his improved Hoosiers team faces when it heads east for Columbus.
“It's a tremendous football team and we got our hands full,” Wilson said.
Indiana Breakdown
Long been considered a team that can score with anybody but never with the ability to stop them with any sort of consistency, the Hoosiers look to notch a program-changing victory. The win against Michigan State is a step in the right direction, though anyone who watched that contest can see it could have gone either way and the Spartans are certainly not the team that won the Big Ten a year ago.
Still, the Hoosiers executed on both sides of the ball when they needed to most. Their defense is playing better under new coordinator Tom Allen, who Wilson hired this winter from South Florida.
“I don't know if it's a turnaround. We're doing better. We'll see over time,” Wilson said Tuesday of his defense, which is allowing 21.8 points per game so far in 2016, down from the Big Ten-worst 37.6 a year ago. “They'll get tested this week with speed, lot of things on the perimeter, I think one of the premier players in the country at quarterback.”
Allen's unit flies around in his 4-2-5 scheme as best it can but doesn't make many "wow" plays. Indiana has four interceptions this season but is dead last in the conference in tackles for loss and second-to-last in sacks. The personnel is not perfect for what Allen wants to do but it is playing better. Of course, it doesn't take much after giving up 509.5 yards per game in 2015.
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| OFFENSE | ||||
| 57.0 | 3rd | POINTS FOR | 29.0 | 67th |
| 332.0 | 3rd | RUSHING OFFENSE | 176.0 | 61st |
| 244.3 | 58th | PASSING OFFENSE | 320.8 | 17th |
| 576.3 | 3rd | TOTAL OFFENSE | 496.8 | 22nd |
| .571 | 1st | 3rd DOWNS | .379 | 79th |
| .913 | 29th | RED ZONE | .643 | 121st |
| DEFENSE | ||||
| 9.3 | 1st | POINTS ALLOWED | 21.8 | 40th |
| 97.5 | 12th | RUSH DEFENSE | 139.5 | 51st |
| 140.3 | 6th | PASS DEFENSE | 233.5 | 70th |
| 74.0 | 1st | PASS EFFICIENCY DEFENSE | 115.6 | 38th |
| 237.8 | 3rd | TOTAL DEFENSE | 373.0 | 51st |
| .271 | 12th | 3rd DOWNS | .338 | 39th |
| .500 | 1st | RED ZONE | .900 | 92nd |
| SPECIAL TEAMS | ||||
| 7.6 | 71st | PUNT RETURN | 10.8 | 38th |
| 24.2 | 32nd | KICKOFF RETURN | 23.5 | 36th |
| 47.2 | 2nd | NET PUNTING | 34.8 | 107th |
| MISCELLANEOUS | ||||
| + 2.0 | 2nd | TURNOVER MARGIN | 0.0 | 58th |
| 8.8 | 114th | PENALTIES | 8.3 | 109th |
| 15 | EDGE | 3 | ||
“They play hard,” Ohio State right tackle Isaiah Prince said on Wednesday after practice. “I watch film, they play hard, they're really physical. They've got some pretty good guys up front.”
“I feel like they’re going to just play man up on us on some plays. They play a two-high defense as well, but a lot of third downs we see a lot of one-fire,” Indiana native and wide receiver Terry McLaurin added. “We know we’re going to get a couple one-on-one matchups and when we get those opportunities we have to make the plays on the outside.”
Tegray Scales (team-leading 5.5 tackles for loss) and Marcus Oliver (first Hoosier to top 100 tackles in a season since 2009, doing so last year) lead at linebacker but must get more production from the guys in front of them for the group to take the proverbial step forward. Only one player on the defensive line has more than one tackle for loss this season—Ralph Green III, with 2.5.
On the other side of the ball, Wilson's offense isn't performing at the clip it did in 2015 but is still dangerous.
Junior college transfer Richard Lagow beat out Zander Diamont—the guy who stepped in for an injured Nate Sudfeld and nearly beat Ohio State last year—for the starting quarterback job. He stands at 6-foot-6 and 240 pounds, an imposing presence already with 1,278 passing yards this year. Ball security is a concern, however. Lagow already has six interceptions including five in Indiana's 33-28 home loss to Wake Forest. But Wilson has made it clear that Lagow is his guy, and he made good on that confidence with the way he performed down the stretch against the Spartans last week.
“He got rattled in the Wake Forest game, lost composure, which was very concerning,” Wilson said. “Not because of the interceptions, he lost his composure in the fourth quarter and that hurt us with his body language and ability to be a leader. You can't be a leader when you can't lead yourself.
“Came back last game and got into a competitive game and got in a situation where he got it corrected against a very challenging team in Michigan State.”
Lagow started his career at UConn but left and walked on at Oklahoma State before ultimately ending up at Cisco Community College in Texas for two seasons. So his film is spotty outside of this season. That is another credit to Wilson making the best with what he's got.
“I just think he's, there's no set thing. When you hear people say 'that player doesn't fit the scheme.' That means you have a coaching staff that's not very creative. You never hear Kevin Wilson say that,” Meyer said. “He creates a scheme around his best players and I like to think we try to do the same thing. I've always respected him over that.”
Indiana lost big back Jordan Howard to the NFL after last year, and he now plays for the Chicago Bears. In his place is Glenville High School graduate Devin Redding, a heavy, one directional runner who has the ability to hurt teams if they don't get to him early.
“Really hard runner. He's a one-cut guy and tries to get downhill as quick as possible,” Ohio State linebacker Chris Worley said of Redding, who he played with in high school. “It's another test for us playing against another good running back.”
On the outside, Lagow has numerous talented pieces at his disposal. Nick Westbrook, Ricky Jones and former walk-on Mitchell Paige all have at least 16 receptions. Westbrook and Jones have 370 and 350 receiving yards, respectively, and Westbrook is tied for third in the Big Ten with four touchdown grabs. Paige is someone Wilson sees as "one of the best leaders on our team," a 5-foot-7, 180-pound redshirt senior who is quick in and out of cuts and can be tough to keep track of in the secondary.
Jones is third in the Big Ten in receiving yards. via Marc Lebryk-USA TODAY Sports.
The Hoosiers will focus on running the football first, however. Four starters returned from an offensive line that paved the way for Howard and more last year as Indiana averaged 210.5 yards per game on the ground. Right tackle Dimitric Camiel is one of them, though Wilson said he "is out for a while" with a bulging disc in his back.
The best player of the group is right guard Dan Feeney, who CBS Sports rates as the top prospect at his position in the 2017 NFL Draft class. A monster of a man at 6-foot-4 and 310 pounds but still light on his feet, Feeney is an All-American and a tough-nosed player the Hoosiers run behind often. But he missed the last two weeks with a concussion and his status remains unclear for Saturday.
If he plays, it will be a huge boost for the Hoosiers.
“They're going to run the football. They're a physical group,” Fickell said. “I think that's the thing that you can look at and say the best offensive line, or one of the best offensive lines we played all last year was Indiana.”
The Hoosiers aren't scoring at the same rate they were last season (29 points per game in 2016 and 36.5 last year) but still have the potential to put up points. Its defense has improved but is nowhere near where it needs to be to make them annual contenders in the Big Ten despite Meyer calling it the best group Ohio State will have faced to date this year. Wilson knows it is prorgressing but still has a ways to go.
“Our kids are buying in. For four games our kids have done a good job,” he said. “There's a lot of water to go over the dam to say we've turned the corner.”
Still, the Hoosiers bring chaos and win games they shouldn't while dropping ones that make you scratch your head. Meyer's teams have not had it easy against them outside of a 42-14 win in 2013.
“You remember a year ago Indiana should have beat the Team Up North, could have beat us,” Meyer said when asked why Indiana always hangs around. “I don't know if I can give you a reason why other than that they're a good team.”
Buckeye Breakdown
With another easy victory against an overmatched opponent in the rearview mirror, Meyer set out this week to convince his Ohio State team things will get tougher in conference play outside of the 58-0 yawner against Rutgers last Saturday. Not an easy thing to do considering the Buckeyes are young, ranked second in the country and ran rampant through any opponent put in front of them the first third of the season.
“It's a problem when the team is not very good, but that's not the case this week at all,” Meyer said on Tuesday.
Ohio State's head coach called Indiana "real" on more than one occasion this week, informing the media how much he claims to be concerned about the Hoosiers. He said he stressed that with his players this week too, especially after Indiana beat Michigan State. For a team riding high and outscoring its opponents 228-27, to see the only team that beat it last season fall to the next team on the schedule helps.
“This is by far their best team, and that is being very respectful of the other teams we've played against.”– Urban Meyer on Indiana
“I think a lot of people were shocked because we’ve seen Michigan State as this powerhouse in the Big Ten, which they still are, but it was just like Indiana is not a team to look past by any means,” J.T. Barrett said. “They give us trouble every year and you’ve gotta do a great job of preparing for them and not looking past them.”
The Buckeyes find themselves in the top-5 of scoring, rushing and total offense in the country after four games. The 9.3 points per game allowed for Fickell's unit is best in the nation while rushing, passing and total defense all reside in the top-11.
Stats don't lie and support the simple fact the Buckeyes are rolling, regardless who Meyer pulls off the bench and throws into the fray.
“You like to get early in the season some of those games (blowouts) so you can get some of those reps,” Meyer said. “A year ago, we kind of struggled early and didn't get some of those younger players in there to get reps. It's always good to get those reps.”
Plenty of that has to do with competition, which will increase as we approach Halloween and road games at Wisconsin and Penn State loom in the next two weeks. Indiana is in the way first, however, the second stop in a stretch that includes nine games in nine weeks.
The inexperience factor is slowly widdling away, with redshirt freshman Mike Weber leading the league in rushing yards per game, a versatile and fantastic talent in Curtis Samuel, more than 10 true freshmen playing roles and terrific first-time starters making plays on defense.
“It’s the same game that you’ve been playing since you were younger,” Weber said this week. “I go out there, just have fun with my guys and it feels good to know all the hard work is paying off.”
Some of the younger top-tier athletes Meyer brought to Columbus are finally get their chance to shine, creating a more than formidable fit with older guys like Chris Worley, Tyquan Lewis, Pat Elflein, Billy Price and Gareon Conley.
Budding stars are available at almost every position, with guys behind them eagerly waiting for one misstep or play to allow them a chance to show the coaches why they should be the ones atop the depth chart. And through it all, Barrett leads the show, sporting 14 passing scores against just two interceptions and threatening to break Braxton Miller's career touchdowns responsible for mark before the season hits the halfway point.
“It's amazing. I've seen him start from the bottom and build his way up,” Worley said. “Our second year, we were able to move off campus for the first time, we actually stayed together. I was there the whole 'Braxton getting injured, him starting, his fame coming over night.' I think he's handled it well and I'm proud of him.”
Added Barrett, firmly in the discussion as one of the best players in the country: “When I first started playing, my freshman year, I wasn’t trying to say I’m going to get 45 touchdowns and beat Drew Brees’ record. That wasn’t a conversation I had with myself. I just try to go out there and be the best I can for my team and I think preparing as hard as I can and going out there and playing as hard as I can. That’s crazy because Braxton, I saw him play and the crazy things he’s done for this university and the great things he’s done for our program. It’s crazy to think about it.”
Barrett is living it, and leading the Buckeyes as the current class of the Big Ten. In order for that to continue, it must take care of business Saturday afternoon against an improved Indiana squad.
“This is by far their best team, and that is being very respectful of the other teams we've played against,” Meyer said.
How It Plays Out
Ohio State's three-headed rushing attack all have at least 200 yards on the ground and two touchdowns apiece.
One could make the argument the worst thing Indiana could have done before it played Ohio State is beat Michigan State, the defending conference champion and 2015 College Football Playoff participant. As much as the Buckeye coaching staff would have done everything in its power to ensure their players stayed focused on the Hoosiers, the fact they pulled the upset is enough motivation.
“Automatically, I thought they were the real deal,” defensive end Sam Hubbard said. “That even just adds on to the intensity we’re going to have this week when they take down one of our top rivals.”
Ohio State's depth and talent give it an obvious advantage on Saturday like it will against most teams it plays in 2016. There is a reason the Buckeyes are favored by 29 points despite the Hoosiers beating a top-25 team one week ago.
“You look at their offense, they run a tempo offense yet they're first in time of possession with 36 minutes a game,” Wilson said. “You've got the margin in points scored and you look at their punter. He'd lead the nation in punting but doesn't make the stat sheet because he doesn't have enough opportunities to punt.”
Wilson's crew faces a tough challenge against Ohio State. The last time Indiana beat the Buckeyes came in 1988. This isn't quite the same Hoosiers team of old, at least on paper.
“They're building a program,” Meyer said. “They played Michigan State and they beat Michigan State and it wasn't a fluke. They came in and they beat 'em. I think every year they're getting better.
“This will be our stiffest challenge.”
ELEVEN WARRIORS STAFF PREDICTION: Ohio State 48, Indiana 16
