Indiana has plenty of areas to address after its season-opening win against Ball State, but it welcomes in FCS opponent Eastern Illinois for the home opener Saturday at Memorial Stadium.
Prepare for the Week Two matchup with a primer from TheHoosier.com.
Setting the Scene
Eastern Illinois has a strong history of football minds. New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton graduated from EIU. Former NFL head coach Mike Shanahan graduated from EIU. And former Dallas Cowboys quarterback and current CBS broadcasting phenom Tony Romo graduated from there. But the prestige of the program doesn’t necessarily match its star-studded list of alumni.
It finished the 2018 season 3-8 and then hired new head coach Adam Cushing, who spent the last 15 seasons at Northwestern.
These are all aspects of a program that IU head coach Tom Allen has listed as reasons why th eHoosiers shouldn’t overlook Eastern Illinois – the fact that good football minds have guided the program in the past and that Cushing knows how to play in a Big Ten atmosphere – but those viable cases don’t make up for the fact that Eastern Illinois is an FCS program on unsettled ground.
Related: Radio Show: Tom Allen previews Eastern Illinois
Indiana is projected by ESPN S&P+ to win by 40 points.
Positional Matchup to Watch
Eastern Illinois QBs vs. Indiana passing defense
While Indiana was able to execute a quarterback battle during the spring and summer and eventually settled on Mike Penix as its starter, Eastern Illinois has yet to put an end to its own quarterback battle. In fact, it’s rolling with the two-quarterback system – a system not too unfamiliar for IU fans, who certainly remember how those seasons eventually played out.
Senior Johnathan Brantley and redshirt junior Harry Woodbery will both take snaps against the Hoosiers. That didn’t pan out well for EIU against Chattanooga last week. Woodbery went 13-for-22 with an interception, while Brantley threw 13-for-24 and a touchdown. Both combined for 240 yards.
Indiana’s secondary entered the season as the understood strength of the defense. That’s where most of the experience lies, as well as Andre Brown and Marcelino Ball. But the secondary wasn’t too impressive against Ball State last week, surrendering 298 yards and two touchdowns. It did come away with an interception from Jaylin Williams at the end of the game, but the middle of the field was widely available for Cardinal receivers and fundamentals seemed to be rusty too.
The defensive line also didn’t get much pressure on Ball State quarterback Drew Plitt until later in the game.
Allen said sometimes playing a different opponent and seeing game tape can fuel some of the biggest growth of the season, so the passing defense might need some of that recalibration after a tough outing against Ball State and before its toughest matchup of the season in Ohio State in Week Three.
Eastern Illinois Player to Watch
Xander Richards
When FCS teams upset FBS teams, its mainstays certainly play a part – such as linebacker Joe Caputo, who led the team with 85 tackles in 2018 and recorded 1.5 TFLs last week – but what makes the most difference are players that are poised for breakout performances. For EIU, that player is redshirt sophomore wide receiver Xander Richards.
The two-quarterback system certainly doesn’t help him, but at 6-foot-4, 180 pounds, Richards has length and athleticism that could match that of a Big Ten wideout. He caught five passes for 67 yards against Chattanooga last week, after catching just two passes last season.
X-Factor for Indiana
Running Backs
Stevie Scott knew immediately after the Ball State game that the running backs needed to get back to practice Monday and work on identifying issues in film. Tom Allen said the running backs group has responded well to that instruction this week.
“Very good. They work really well together,” Allen said Thursday. “Not everybody is going to get the ball as much as they’d like to, but my challenge to all of those guys is, ‘When you’re called upon, perform. Whether you get one, two, five, 19, 20, whatever you get, that’s key.’ They want to run the football well too, and we challenge them all the time to be a complete back – blocking, catching, running.”
Related: Watch: Tom Allen addresses media ahead of Eastern Illinois
Last week, Ball State forced Mike Penix to win the game for IU, but it wouldn’t be surprising to see the field expand, as Allen predicted would happen with good performances from the redshirt freshman quarterback. The rushing defense is the strength for EIU, as it only surrendered 94 against Chattanooga, but an Indiana rushing attack, with Scott, Ronnie Walker Jr., Cole Gest and Sampson James, could blow the top off an FCS opponent if corrections are made.
Handing the ball off more often than passing would be beneficial in making tweaks to the rushing attack before Ohio State as well as keeping Penix healthy.
If the running backs have a strong performance, it will be a positive note as the season inches toward Big Ten play, but if they struggle again, things could get ugly for the IU offense in the very near future.
Prediction
Indiana 34, Eastern Illinois 10
It’s not the 40 points that ESPN projected, but IU fans can be happy with a victory of this size. I personally expect plenty of running from Indiana, which will run the clock down. Surely there will be a few shots taken downfield by Penix, but if there is an effort to get the running game fixed before Ohio State, this will need to be the result.
