Assessing the Transfer Portal
The dust has settled (a bit), so where does Indiana stand with the portal?
The transfer portal remains a confounding yet interesting topic of discussion around college football, and even though I discussed it at length in the last emergency edition of Bite-Sized Bison, I want to go deeper into its effects on Indiana, particularly defensively. If you were hoping to hear about something else, I apologize, but the former recruiting reporter in me loves to discuss roster construction.
I have updated the predicted Indiana 2023 depth chart, if you want to check that out at this link.
I also updated the scholarship chart, and you can find that at this link.
Indiana has 59 scholarship players on roster and 9 (!) high school commitments, so it will need to add 17 more scholarship players, between high school commitments and the transfer portal, before the end of the offseason.
So, included below is as follows:
How bad is the current state of Indiana’s offense?
What exactly is Indiana losing to the portal?
Where do Indiana players rank within the portal?
Discussing offensive line and the transfer portal
How bad is the state of Indiana’s defense?
It’s…well…not good. Kyle Robbins made a good point in the tweet below, which is also a point the guys at CrimsonCast have been raising all season, regarding seniors on defense. The transfer portal has only exacerbated it.
Now, Aaron Casey and Noah Pierre could still return for 2023 with another year of eligibility granted due to COVID-19. That doesn’t take away from his point much, though. But let’s get deeper with snap counts.
The defense played a total of 949 snaps in 2022. Tiawan Mullen led the team, significantly, with his 831 snaps. That’s 88% of the defense’s snaps. Here are the returning Hoosiers’ 2022 snap counts.
Even within that bleak image of the defense entirely, the defensive backs are hardly represented, which was expected after the eligibility of many mainstays was expiring but has, again. been exacerbated by the transfer portal. Below is a similar table for the defensive backs room.
There is a possibility that the most productive returning defensive back on the roster played just 180 snaps in 2022 (Brylan Lanier).
When it comes to starting cornerbacks, Tom Allen and his staff are either going to need a transfer or two, or lean heavily on young faces – hoping that a redshirt freshman Trevell Mullen can repeat legacy or move James Monds, who can play anywhere in a secondary and was recruited to play safety, to cornerback and hope the two redshirt freshmen can flourish.
At safety, Bryson Bonds might get his chance at strong safety, or, if Noah Pierre returns to his place at husky – where he played much of the 2022 season – Jordan Grier might step in at strong safety. Phillip Dunnam, who showed flashes in 2022, could find himself in a full-time position at free safety. Without seeing the redshirt freshmen on the field in 2022 and hopelessly watching the unexplainable regression of the veteran DBs, it’s difficult to trust the development of even the most talented young players on this roster. Allen and the staff could gain an influx of transfers in this room as well, since there are 239 defensive backs in the portal, according to On3, as of Dec. 9.
If I were to put together a best-case, next-man-up defense for Indiana in 2023, where the 2022 returners were starters, eliminating the idea that young guys could leapfrog spots on the depth chart and transfers could come in and take starting spots, this is what it would look like.
What exactly is Indiana losing in the portal?
There seems to be a mass exodus from Bloomington, with 12 Hoosiers entering the portal since it opened last week. Besides the obvious at quarterback and kicker, what exactly is Indiana losing?
Key depth, which I noted in the last BSB column. Only four transfers showed signs of starter caliber in 2022 (Bazelak, Tuttle, Barner, Campbell). The rest would likely have naturally moved up to start in 2023 with added development, but talent in second- and third-string spots is crucial to competing against Big East powers. Indiana now lacks that in most areas.
Any kind of pass rush. Dasan McCullough was an imperfect pass rusher on paper, but the signs were there, and he flashed often. Even if Indiana retains some seniors for their COVID years, the pass rush will remain awful without additions (graded third-worst nationally by PFF). This aspect desperately needs the presence of Aaron Casey, who had an 82.0 PFF grade in pass rush in 2022. No other returner hit average. That includes former four-star DE and expected 2023 leading pass rusher Beau Robbins, who earned a 57.9.
Depth at receiver. This point will sound like Indiana actually needs playmakers at receiver, and that is because it does (and it has since before 2022), but it also lost important depth in the room as well. Losing Malachi Holt-Bennett (big bodied, blocking WR) and Javon Swinton (versatility) hurts, in terms of depth. Andison Coby graded 45th out of 46 Big Ten WRs with at least 30 targets, and Emery Simmons and Donaven McCulley were 36th and 38th, respectively. All, at the moment, are slated to be starters in 2023 – with Cam Camper sidelined – but should really be depth pieces. Either Omar Cooper and Jazquez Smith will need to leapfrog spots on the depth chart and be lights out in their first years on the field, or Indiana needs to find even better transfers at the position.
Not as much loss at TE as expected. There are 20 Big Ten tight ends that saw 20 or more targets in 2022, and AJ Barner is graded 17th among them. Aaron Steinfeldt actually edged Barner out in PFF’s receiving grade, though both were below average, and Steinfeldt’s usage and performance was step-for-step (in snap position, contested catch percentage, YAC, yards per route run, average depth of target, etc.) with Barner, just in a smaller sample size. Steinfeldt must improve in run blocking, and if he does, there might not be quite the step down that folks initially expect.
Next men up in the secondary. Setting aside Noah Pierre, Indiana has lost its top 10 defenders in coverage snaps from 2022. Coincidentally, those are the only defenders who played more than 100 coverage snaps. In the portal, Josh Sanguinetti was 8th, with 147; Chris Keys was 11th, with 93; and Lem Watley-Neeley was 19th, with 41. The Hoosiers lost nearly an entire line behind its starters, with Brylan Lanier (13th) being the most experienced coverage defensive back remaining. As I said in the last BSB, some DBs are going to have to play outside of themselves in 2023.
Where do Indiana transfers rank in the portal?
There really are no reliable transfer portal trackers between 247Sports, Rivals, and On3, in terms of ranking and tracking every transfer in the portal (maybe we’ll get there someday), but On3 has the farthest reach on its tracker. It has ranked (nearly) every player to enter the portal this offseason, so as an experiment that goes hand-in-hand with what Indiana has lost to the portal this year, the following is a list of where each of those 12 Hoosiers rank within their positions.
Note: You might notice N/A next to some names. The way these sites’ transfer portal trackers work is they rank their top transfers overall, and you can search within that overall ranking. Rivals did its top 300; 247Sports did an unknown amount; and On3 ranked the top 1,146. If there’s an “N/A” then that player is not in On3’s top 1,146.
The main takeaway from this list is that there is a lot of talent in the transfer portal right now, so Indiana could find some good additions at key positions, like the secondary, quarterback, or linebacker.
Looking at Offensive Line Transfers
Folks have been begging Indiana all season to hit the transfer portal for offensive linemen when the offseason comes (and for good reason), but it honestly seems, given improvements seen during the last quarter of the season and the number of linemen on the roster, that Indiana might need to look elsewhere.
As I noted on CrimsonCast midway through the season, transfer offensive linemen are 1.) either difficult to find in the portal or 2.) not as effective as expected.
There are only 141 offensive linemen in the transfer portal, according to On3. That’s across all five positions. This is compared to 171 at WR, 99 at RB, and 152 at cornerback. Offensive linemen just typically don’t transfer, for a number of reasons, but primarily because the good ones are easy to identify early at the high school level, so schools hang onto them and develop them into a three- or four-year plan at the position. There is very little variance or surprise during any given year along the line.
Indiana has tried the portal before. In 2022, it was Parker Hanna (very bad); in 2021, it was Zach Carpenter (bad); and in 2020, it was Luke Haggard (okay) and Dylan Powell (bad). Carrying over the ideas from No. 1 into this paragraph: there are reasons programs let go of offensive linemen. Rarely does an offensive linemen of high caliber want to leave a program; it’s often the lackluster ones who once showed promise that are pushed out.
Should Indiana add an offensive linemen in the portal? Absolutely. At least one interior offensive lineman. But the offensive line cannot be fixed in the portal.