7/23/2020 football Edit

Nine Hoosiers named to Phil Steele's Big-Ten Teams

Paul Gable • TheHoosier

Staff Writer

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Nine members of the Indiana football team have earned preseason honors by Phil Steele, as they earned spots on the preseason Big Ten Team.

Leading the way is running back Stevie Scott, who earned a spot on the first team. He is the lone Hoosier on the first team. For the second consecutive season, Scott finds himself on the preseason watch list for the Doak Walker Award, given out to the best running back in college football. The junior is just 18 yards shy of reaching 2,000 rushing yards in his career, and he would become only the 14th Hoosier to do so.

In two seasons, he is tied for eighth in program history with 20 rushing touchdowns, tied for 10th with nine 100-yard games and is tied for 11th in 22 total touchdowns. A second-team All-Big Ten honoree a year ago, Scott finished fourth in the conference in rushing yards per game with 76.8, fifth in carries with 178, fourth in rushing touchdowns with 10, sixth in total touchdowns with 11 and 10th in all-purpose yards per game at 96.0 despite missing the final two games of the season.

Five total Indiana players found spots on the second team. Earning that distinction were: Marcelino Ball, Peyton Hendershot, Jerome Johnson, Whop Philyor and Sean Wracher. Ball, a senior safety, notched 47 tackles, three tackles for a loss and six quarterback hurries last season and has started for the Hoosiers since arriving on campus. Hendershot is a member of the John Mackey Award watch list. The award is given to college football’s top tight end. Last fall, Hendershot was named to the third-team All-Big Ten team, setting Indiana single-season tight end records with 52 receptions and 622 yards. The Indiana native tied for fourth among tight ends nationally in catches and 10th in yardage. Johnson, a redshirt senior, leads all active Hoosiers with 9.5 sacks and 16.5 tackles for loss at his defensive line position. For his efforts, he received Indiana’s Chris Dal Sasso Award, which is given to the team’s outstanding lineman. As a junior, Johnson recorded 43 tackles, of which 20 were solo stops, and five sacks to go along with 7.5 tackles for loss and two quarterback hurries. He tied for the team lead in sacks and finished second in tackles for loss. He led the defensive line in tackles, starting all 13 games and in the last five games, he picked up 24 tackles, 11 solo tackles and three sacks.

Whop Philyor, a senior, was only the seventh receiver in program history to top the 1,000-yard receiving mark last season as he went for 1,002 yards on 70 catches and contributed with five touchdowns. His efforts were strong enough to put him on the second-team All-Big Ten team. This season he has a chance to add to his legacy, as he is less than 1,200 yards away from becoming Indiana’s all-time leader in receiving yards and is only 66 receptions away from becoming the program’s all-time leader. For his career, he has 126 receptions for 1,572 yards and nine touchdowns and is a 2020 Biletnikoff Award Pre-Season Watch List. Finally, Sean Wracher, a sophomore, is the team’s long and short snapper and is back after playing in 13 games last season.

Finding themselves on the Fourth Team were Harry Crider, Cam Jones, and Michael Penix Jr. Crider is a senior offensive lineman, who graduated in December. He played in 13 games, starting 12 of them. Jones, a junior linebacker, recorded 35 tackles, 23 solo tackles, two sacks, four-and-a-half tackles for a loss, an interception for a touchdown, one forced fumble, two pass deflections and two quarterback hurries last year.

A bit surprising is Penix, a redshirt sophomore, who lands here. He showed signs of brilliance last year, earning Big Ten Freshman-of-the-Week honors for his efforts against Ball State and Michigan State. He started all six games in which he appeared before injuries sidelined him. He set the program single-season completion percentage mark at 68.8 percent, threw for 1,394 yards and 10 touchdowns on the season, while adding 118 yards and two touchdowns on 22 carries.