Bison Bites: Dispatch #4

Data bites touching on: Indiana's production and potential in the 2024 defensive backfield, The Caitlin Clark Effect, and IUFB's ease of schedule

Each dispatch of Bison Bites is intended to be a quick-hitting list of approximately 3-5 statistics of interest between typical Bite-Sized Bison posts.

Bison Bites will be subscriber-only in the near-future, so if you like what you see, ensure that you are a paying subscriber to Bite-Sized Bison so you never miss a dispatch. For free subscribers, you can upgrade to paid here; for non-subscribers, you can subscribe here.

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Programming Note: There is a lot changing, and quickly so, in the world of football recruiting, as we’ve now entered the Dead Period and finished the busiest visiting chunk of the calendar (late May through June). Now, we wait for commitment announcements (most have already been told to the coaching staff) and follow along with any continued recruiting battles into the fall. Be sure to keep an eye on the BSB Chat, as I throw in some modest recruiting analysis from my time as a recruiting reporter, like this thread (with some interesting questions!).

Also, I provided a BSB Roundup in the BSB Chat recently, pulling out posts since Curt Cignetti’s hiring in December that have remained timely so you don’t need to sort through the BSB archive.

Now, to the Bison Bites!

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Three projected IU starting DBs graded in the top-5% of returning FBS & FCS DBs in 2023 (according to PFF).

In 2023, 936 FBS and FCS defensive backs in the 2025 draft class or later played 300+ snaps. Of those 936, new Indiana DB Cedarius Doss (Austin Peay) graded 6th, new CB D’Angelo Ponds (JMU) graded 10th, and new SAF Shawn Asbury (Old Dominion) graded 42nd. 

The Bite-Sized Bison projected depth chart sees these five DBs starting in 2024:

• CB: D’Angelo Ponds (99th percentile of the specified pool above)

• SS: Shawn Asbury (95th percentile)

• FS: Josh Sanguinetti (32nd percentile)

• ROVER: Cedarius Doss (100th percentile)

• CB: Jamier Johnson (did not qualify)

The remaining qualifying DBs on the roster are as follows:

• SAF/ROVER Terry Jones (64th percentile)

• SAF Nic Toomer (43rd percentile)

• CB Jamari Sharpe (21st percentile)

It remains important to consider that this pool of DBs is coming from varied levels of 2023 competition – Doss from FCS play; Ponds, Asbury, and Jones coming from G5 play – and their PFF Defensive grades are determined within the vacuum of their games. But the production is there, and executing at a high level signals some translation to the Power 4 level (see Forecasting the 2024 Defense for more on that).

Curt Cignetti has repeated himself since his hiring at Indiana, when asked about how he and his staff are approaching roster construction for 2024: production over potential. And after losing four of five starting 2023 DBs on the roster, production was certainly a must at the safety and cornerback positions. Setting aside the grades for a moment, just having seven players who played 300+ snaps last year (and four upperclassmen behind them) is a gold mine of experience for a Power 4 defensive backfield.

IUWBB’s crowd size grew 81% when hosting Caitlin Clark in 2024, the second-lowest of Iowa’s road opponents.

Indiana fans will likely be torn about this one because they grew fatigued of (and slightly offended by) The Caitlin Clark Effect discussion that led to broad strokes over NCAA Women’s Basketball nationally and the erasure of truly passionate fanbases, like Indiana’s, that show up for their teams throughout the schedule, regardless of opponent. You can see from the visualization below that Indiana owned the highest average home attendance of any Iowa road opponent and that Iowa’s trip to Indiana was the least affected by The Caitlin Clark Effect of any non-Iowa program.

However, the data shows a true effect. I’m working on a larger project in attempting to apply statistical context to The Caitlin Clark Effect and how it has carried over into her WNBA era, and this is some preliminary data I discovered along the way.

During her final collegiate season, road crowds showed a collective 166% increase when Iowa visited, led by Northwestern at a 288% increase. Indiana’s crowd grew just (lol) 81% when Iowa visited. Even Maryland and Ohio State – two storied WBB programs – grew by 200%+ when Clark came to town. As noted above, that is the lowest non-Iowa percentage increase, as Iowa State was the only program with a lower percentage increase in attendance (79%). 

Source: sportsdataverse

If you’ve continued following Clark’s journey into the WNBA (I highly recommend it), you know that wherever the Fever travel, teams must move venues to accommodate larger crowds. So yes, The Caitlin Clark Effect followed her into the WNBA. But what has that looked like so far statistically?

Well, according to data collected via sportsdataverse as of June 20, WNBA crowds have grown roughly 351% collectively when hosting the Fever

Source: sportsdataverse

IUFB owns the 4th-easiest 2024 schedule in the Power 4, according to FifthQuarter.net.

According to FifthQuarter.net’s formula (not sure of its reliability but hear me out on this), Indiana trails only SMU, North Carolina, and Syracuse for ease of schedule in 2024. 

In a lot of ways, this makes sense:

• Indiana plays 8 of 12 games in Bloomington.

• It pulls the two weakest of the four former Pac-12 teams (UCLA and Washington).

• While IU plays Ohio State and Michigan – the No. 2 and No. 6 ESPN SP+ pre-season teams – it avoids Oregon (3), Penn State (7), USC (21), Iowa (22), Wisconsin (27), and Nebraska (40), which are 6 of the top 10 Big Ten teams. 

• The road schedule is fairly light, aside from Ohio State and the cross-country trip to play UCLA (who I think is a bit underrated right now but is vulnerable). 

My primary concern with looking at the ease of Indiana’s schedule is that, while there are numerous questions heading into the 2024 season that will decide the quality of many teams, Indiana is also a program in question. But for a program that regularly sees itself in the top 10-15 toughest schedules every season in the Big Ten East, this objectively softer schedule is quite a relief, and, while expecting a bowl game for Indiana Football is like bungee jumping with a 3-star bungee rope, that does seem like a reasonable expectation for Indiana in 2024.

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