Rod Carey and "What Works" with the IUFB Offense

Rod Carey will take over as OC for Indiana, and he wants to do "what works" with the offense.

Indiana has appointed Rod Carey to offensive coordinator after firing Walt Bell, which was discussed in my previous newsletter. While I don’t disagree with the change and am intrigued with the potential for an offensive identity under Carey, I’m pessimistic that this change advances this team forward in the face of what seems like total systems failure on all sides.

In his press conference, Carey said simply that Indiana’s offense will “do what works” and less of what hasn’t worked. I respect this answer because it’s true: there’s little that can be done to turn around any offense mid-season, let alone an offense ranked 94th in the country by ESPN SP+ and 105th in offensive success rate. That also means that very little has worked. 

So what has “flashed,” as Carey said?

Passing

Tayven Jackson and Brendan Sorsby have found success through the air. With no minimum dropbacks, Sorsby owns the 6th-best passing grade in the Big Ten and Jackson owns the 8th-best grade. With a minimum of 100 dropbacks, Jackson owns the 5th-best passing grade (Sorsby doesn’t qualify). 

The effort that Bell gave toward getting into play-action opportunities paid off because Jackson has the 7th-best Offensive Grade among Big Ten QBs out of play action and the second-worst without play action. Sorsby was the opposite, faring better in non-play-action opportunities. 

Indiana has also gained the 3rd-most yards in the Big Ten when passing on first down. This has resulted in the most first downs gained on first-down passes.

It’s difficult to execute slow-developing passing plays when the offensive line is so weak, and Indiana’s is weak (ranked 104th in pass-blocking by PFF). So throwing deep isn’t as easy as it may seem. However, when given the opportunity, Jackson has been solid on intermediate throws (10-19 yards downfield). His passing grade at this depth is 7th in the Big Ten, above Taulia Tagovailoa, Kyle McCord, Gavin Wimsatt, and Cade McNamara, among others. His adjusted completion percentage is 3rd in the conference at this depth. His accuracy at short distances is suspect, especially after Maryland, but 10-19 yards downfield is where Jackson could live. In a smaller sample size, Sorsby has higher grades than Jackson at both short and deep distances. 

The offensive line has to be better, though. Teams are gaining pressure without even needing to blitz.

Jaylin Lucas

It’s fairly obvious at this point that Indiana must pass the ball to Jaylin Lucas. 21 of his 49 carries have been toward the interior offensive line, and on his remaining carries, he’s averaging only 3.3 yards per carry. His rushing grade has fallen to 3rd-worst among Big Ten RBs with at least 20 carries. Yet, when he was targeted 12 times in Week 3, he posted his best Offensive Grade of the season and the 16th-best in the conference.

Passing to RBs

Related to the point above, when Indiana passes to its RBs, it finds success, which was true in 2022 as well. Jaylin Lucas leads the Big Ten with the 14th-best RB receiving grade in the nation, and Josh Henderson is 4th in the conference. Henderson is in step with Ohio State’s TreVeyon Henderson (15.0) with his 14.7 yards per reception, good for 3rd among Big Ten RBs. 

Obviously, this is dependent on Henderson’s health, as Christian Turner is not as good in pass-catching scenarios as Henderson is. 

Running Against Weak Fronts

Little has worked in the running game, but against Maryland, Indiana proved it could run into the heart of weak defensive fronts. Indiana averaged 4.6 yards per carry into the four interior gaps against a Maryland line that ranked 109th in line yards per rush allowed going into the game. I mentioned in a previous newsletter that – including Maryland – the remainder of Indiana’s schedule averages the 71st success rate against the rush, so weak fronts are in the future.

Throwing to Cam Camper (and others)

Jaylin Lucas (22) and Cam Camper (21) are 27th and 30th in the Big Ten in targets. The two of them own the 4th- and 5th-best receiving grades in the Big Ten among all pass-catchers. Keep in mind that Camper has been injured, and keeping him healthy needs to be a priority, but those two must be targeted in the passing game.

Expanding this out a bit, though, Donaven McCulley has grown into a solid WR. He owns the 20th-best receiving grade among Big Ten WRs with at least 10 targets, and he and Camper are 13th and 10th, respectively, in contested catch percentage.

Also, there has to be a better way to use Dequece Carter. Carter came into Bloomington as an elite deep-ball receiver. Those plays can rarely develop with this offensive line, though his average depth of target (14.7 yards) is 9th in the conference still. But his yards per route run (less than a yard) is 40th among 48 qualifying Big Ten WRs, and his reception percentage (37% - 6 catches on 16 targets) is the worst, with only 2 drops attributed to him. There seems to be untapped potential there. 

What isn’t working?

I don’t want to spend too much time on this topic, since I’ve discussed this often throughout the year so far (and I’m getting tired, to be honest), but one glaring concept that hasn’t worked for this offense is the option rushing attack. 

Tayven Jackson has the worst rushing grade of all non-RB Big Ten ball carriers with at least 5 rushes this season, and there’s even a drop-off from second-to-last. Expand these parameters out to the entire nation, and Jackson is 212th out of 216. This is not what he does. 

And that’s okay! He owns the 68th-best passing grade in the nation and has legitimate WRs to throw to. Why surrender the ball to an inferior facet of the offense – an option rushing game that averages 2.9 yards on the outside and hasn’t yielded explosion (long of 17 yards)?

A 30,000-Foot View of Rod Carey’s History

I appreciate what Rod Carey did with the offensive line (and the change in offensive scheme) in 2022, earning Indiana a win at Michigan State, and his head coaching experience (particularly with successful Group of Five teams) is undoubtedly helpful where there has been so little experience since 2019. However, as mentioned above, it’s difficult to see this change and believe there will be a dramatic deviance (not just in 2023 but moving forward) from what’s shown in the graphic below.

The best evidence we have to aim our expectations is what Carey did at Northern Illinois and Temple.

Temple

In 2006, Al Golden inherited a program that had just been kicked out of the Big East due to its lack of commitment to football and went 1-11 his first year. Three years later, Temple was in the MAC and made a bowl for the first time since 1979 after a 9-3 season. Golden finished his time at Temple with a 27-34 record after being hired by Miami (now the defensive coordinator at Notre Dame). Steve Addazio (now the offensive line coach at Texas A&M) took the baton from Golden to lead Temple to another 9-win season and a bowl victory before things went south and he was hired away by Boston College just two years later. Matt Rhule – former Carolina Panthers head coach and current Nebraska head coach – took over the program in a tough spot, ending his first year with just 2 wins during Temple’s first season in the American. He quickly responded with a 6-6 season the next year and two 10-4 seasons before being hired away by Baylor. Geoff Collins continued Temple’s success after Rhule, leading the Owls to two bowl seasons before being hired as Georgia Tech’s head coach. 

After spending the majority of three decades in irrelevance, Temple appeared in 6 bowls in 10 seasons and peaked at No. 28 (2016) in the national SP+ Ratings before Rod Carey was hired as head coach. Carey led Temple to the Military Bowl in 2019, his first year, but after that season, Temple fell to depths it hadn’t seen since before all of the progress seen post-2006. In fact, Temple was kicked out of the Big East after being ranked 101st in SP+ in 2004. In both seasons as an Independent following the ousting, Temple ranked 119th. In Carey’s second season at Temple, the Owls were back to 119th and fell to 124th in his last season. He was the first Temple head coach to be fired since 1992. 

You’ll read below that at Northern Illinois, Carey’s teams were defined by running the football, especially at QB. That wasn’t the case at Temple. QB Anthony Russo threw for more than 2,800 yards in Carey’s first season and 863 in just 4 games in 2020. But no rusher ran for more than 321 yards in Careys’ final two seasons.

Northern Illinois

Coming off a successful Joe Novak Era, NIU hired Jerry Kill, who brought in Chandler Harnish and led the Huskies to 3 bowls in 3 seasons and lifted the program to a new height (11 wins in his final season) before taking the head coaching job at Minnesota. Dave Doeren took the baton and handled Harnish and Jordan Lynch at QB to go 23-5 in two seasons before taking the head coaching job at NC State, where he’s earned 8 bowl bids in 10 seasons. Carey took over after Doeren and led the program to 5 bowls in 6 seasons, despite some gradual degradation until his Temple tenure.

Carey’s Huskies won 52 games (including 4 Big Ten wins) in 6 seasons and appeared in 5 bowls (plus 1 with Carey as interim head coach), losing all of them. Since his departure after 2018, NIU has earned one bowl bid.

Most notably at Northern Illinois, Carey led the offensive line that protected Chandler Harnish (2011) and led the way for Jordan Lynch (2012-13), who set FBS QB rushing yards in back-to-back seasons. Lynch, who would become the first Husky to attend the Heisman ceremony in 2013, ran for nearly 2,000 yards and threw for almost 3,000 more in Carey’s first season as head coach (2013). Understandably, once Lynch left, things became a bit more difficult offensively for Northern Illinois, and to Carey’s credit, he maintained some offensive success, primarily through running the ball. They didn’t drop out of the top-50 in rushing until his final season, even reappearing in the top-20 during his fourth season.

What was always true at Northern Illinois is that Carey’s QBs ran the ball. Non-Lynch starting QBs threw for more than 2,000 yards just twice from 2014-2018 and averaged 136 rushes per season in that span. For reference, Shaun Shivers ran the ball 143 times in 2022. This worked for the Huskies, as they remained in the top-60 in points scored (bottoming at 28.9 points per game) before collapsing to 121st in Carey’s final year. A capable rushing QB also determined the ceiling for several of his teams.

Indiana fans saw this when Carey took over as offensive line coach midseason in 2022 and Indiana eventually went to a heavy run-first mentality, peaking when Dexter Williams threw just 7 passes against Michigan State before his injury at Purdue.

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