Indiana redshirt freshman Peyton Ramsey has shown several signs of improvement, including during a career day against No. 9 Penn State at Happy Valley on Saturday. But now he ha a chance to lead the offense against a Michigan defense that has had his number in two years previous and boasts the third-best passing defense in the country.
After going 31-for-41 for 371 yards against Penn State during Indiana’s 34-27 loss Saturday, redshirt junior Peyton Ramsey stacked another stellar performance on top of the previous efficient performances he’s had against Big Ten opponents throughout his career.
His 2018 three-touchdown game at Ohio State stands out as another one, along with his 345-yard performance against Purdue last year, his three-touchdown game against Maryland in 2017 and his 351-yard game at Nebraska earlier this season.
But one team that he has yet to carve his initials into is Michigan. In two games, he’s amassed 373 yards, two touchdowns and three interceptions on 36-of-76 (47 percent) passing. Those aren’t terrible figures but not the marks that 2019 Peyton Ramsey has been able to display. Much of that can be attributed to the growth he’s had this season.
“You always flash through previous years to get an idea, for me especially, about how this has kind of played out,” first-year Indiana offensive coordinator Kalen DeBoer said Monday. “But I think this is about our team this year and Peyton and us doing what we do. I’ve flipped through those games and understand what has taken place.”
While those previous games may or may not provide a glimpse into how Michigan attacks the Indiana passing game, what is undoubtedly bound to change in this week’s matchup versus the previous two is an increased efficiency in the Indiana passing attack.
In just one season under the new DeBoer system – a system Tom Allen has described as a complex scheme with simple communication and understanding. That’s what Ramsey said is the epicenter of his improvements from last year and the year before.
“The decision-making process. He simplifies things so much, and he makes it easier and quicker to go through progressions,” Ramsey said about DeBoer.
There’s a direct connection between that ease that DeBoer has provided Ramsey and his uptick in production. When asked how he feels he’s improved most this season, Ramsey said he feels like he can trust his reads and progressions this year more than he has in the past.
That trust, combined with the experience DeBoer and Ramsey point to when asked about how the redshirt junior has been able to limit his mistakes, has shown on paper and in wins. Just from 2018 to 2019, Ramsey has jumped 2.0 yards per attempt – currently at 8.4 – and is on pace to throw five or six interceptions to last year’s 13.
He is currently third in the nation among quarterbacks with at least 200 dropbacks in adjusted completion percentage (80.6), and his quarterback rating (157.34) is third in the Big Ten.
But, of course, an arm and a mentality and a preparedness don’t come simply from trust. They come from Ramsey, who has made the efforts to put himself in this position. “Coach DeBoer and I talking throughout the week, it was just, man, he was just so impressed with Peyton's knowledge of the game plan, even early on,” Allen said about preparing for Penn State.
Pointing directly to an example from the Tuesday meeting, DeBoer noted how Ramsey came in with questions that wouldn’t normally be addressed until later in the week. He asked about reacting to certain blitz looks and what to do on certain third-down scenarios, how to check the protection in response.
DeBoer also said Ramsey had the Penn State defense looking to the sideline frequently while he was making adjustments to the offense and then checking in response to how the Penn State defense changed – “checking a check that (DeBoer) had made,’ the offensive coordinator said.
DeBoer said Ramsey “had control of it,” which is something that wasn’t always guaranteed in the days under former IU offensive coordinator Mike DeBord – the days when Ramsey was inexperienced and within a system that featured mutual limitations.
“He’s just so prepared,” DeBoer said. “He wants it so bad.”
It’s also more than his preparedness. Ramsey is making the throws. When redshirt freshman quarterback Mike Penix was lost for the season, the loss of his big arm was probably what was lamented the most.
While Ramsey cannot make the same deep throws as Penix, he, as Allen said it Monday, is getting the ball down the field better than in previous seasons. And on those deeper passes, he is more accurate than in years previous. He and Penix are two of three quarterbacks in the Big Ten with no interceptions on passes 20 or more yards downfield, and Ramsey is completing 50 percent of such passes.
He hit Ty Fryfogle (twice) and Whop Philyor on deep passes, and one Fryfogle ball was placed just over the receiver’s outside shoulder, where he could turn around and get a foot in bounds. And nearly every game includes a pass that stands out as one of the best in Ramsey’s career.
With those throws, the mental preparedness Ramsey brings to the offense and the new system DeBoer has comprised for the Hoosiers’ to boast the best passing attack in the Big Ten, Ramsey will need to put it all together Saturday for Indiana’s final home game of the season, against the third-best passing defense in the conference, and leave his mark on a Michigan program that has so far limited the steadily improving quarterback.
“(He’s) very comfortable, it appears, in our system that Coach DeBoer has installed here and our guys have,” Allen said. “It's now become our own.”
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