Michigan loss shines light on depth, inexperience on Indiana's roster
Indiana's matchup against No. 13 Michigan exposed some truths about college football that caught up to the Hoosiers but that didn't diminish the history the program has made in 2019.
Indiana fifth-year senior linebacker Reakwon Jones said he was “surprised” Saturday evening.
He was surprised at Indiana’s lack of execution, surprised at the absent fundamentals and surprised at the lost one-on-one matchups that plagued nearly every defensive – and eventually offensive – drive on Indiana’s way to losing to No. 13 Michigan, 39-14.
The outcome, though, wasn’t as surprising.
Indiana head coach, in his two-plus years as the head coach in Bloomington, was 0-13 against top-25 opponents heading into Saturday’s game, and Michigan was playing the best football it’s played all season.
The loss was less about surprise and more about the exposure of vital truths in college football and about the 2019 Hoosiers.
“We're not where we need to be depth-wise. We're getting closer, absolutely, but we're not there yet,” Allen said after the game Saturday. “It gets exposed. This time of the year it gets exposed in these types of games, against this type of talent.”
This is a hard truth about college football. Depth can beat a less deep team into the ground, and Indiana felt the effects of that against Michigan, primarily in the passing game.
True freshman Tiawan Mullen graduated high school six months ago and is now the best coverage defensive back on Indiana’s roster. Even he surrendered a touchdown to Michigan’s Donovan Peoples-Jones – granted on a perfect pass from Shea Patterson on tight coverage.
But spelling the talented freshman meant slotting in another young, yet less capable, cornerback to cover a stable of wide receivers that boasted talent Indiana hadn’t seen since week three against Ohio State. It’s a young, delicate defense that Kane Wommack has said needs to be placed in perfect position facing the likes of Jim Harbaugh and years of deep recruiting classes.
The talent is there for Indiana in a volume unseen in decades, but the years aren’t. Nothing made that fact clearer than the repeated punches to the jaw in the form of a 76-yard touchdown by Nico Collins, an easy pass-and-catch from Patterson to Bell for a score, and the 24-yard touchdown to Collins above a defending Raheem Layne. Or any of the six passes that went longer than 20 yards.
The secondary was on an island Saturday and became an example of what much of the 2019 Indiana roster is facing – increased depth, increased expectations but decreased experience. That resulted in lost one-on-one matchups that didn’t exist against teams like Nebraska, Maryland, Northwestern or even Penn State.
“It was just frustrating. It’s a frustrated locker room,” Jones said. “We didn’t play to our potential. We didn’t play Indiana football. We didn’t play how we played all season.”
That was because Michigan was the first and last opponent on Indiana’s schedule that aligned with the strengths of Ohio State, which beat Indiana 51-10. It had a tough, experienced secondary with a strong pass rush, a former five-star quarterback finding his stride with not only multiple talented receivers with various skillsets but also a running game it’s leaned on in the past. And the program is being led by a former NFL head coach.
That exposed Indiana’s vulnerabilities in a lot of ways. The banged up offensive line that had leaned on Kalen DeBoer’s quick-pass system was pushed past its limits when that system was slowed Saturday, and without Whop Philyor and no real replacement for his role, Indiana’s offense unraveled, punting five times and turning the ball over twice.
Stevie Scott, who finished with 54 yards and a touchdown on 13 carries as the lone bright spot in the offense, suffered two injuries and missed much of the game.
“It’s nothing that they did,” Jones said. “It was just that we didn’t execute when we needed to. We didn’t execute our technique, our fundamentals, one-on-one matchups. It’s not what I was expecting at all.”
In some ways, the success Indiana found on a four-game Big Ten winning streak and the competitiveness shown against No. 9 Penn State last week did surround Saturday’s loss with surprise. The lofty preseason goals Indiana has already met only add to it.
But the loss to Michigan won’t take away from the historical 2019 season, even if Indiana doesn’t earn its signature top-25 win. Because it’s still history, with more history on the table in the coming weeks, and when Indiana plays top-25 teams in 2020, the inexperienced depth will be less inexperienced and another recruiting class will be stacked on top of the two best recruiting classes in Indiana history.
And that’s the truth about college football and what Allen means when he discusses “staying the course.”
“You could just tell that the way people think and feel about football around here now as compared to the past is a lot different,” Peyton Ramsey said.
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