Week 13 Recap: Ohio State

Now that the dust has settled, let's take a deeper look at Indiana's matchup against Ohio State.

Like Curt Cignetti said as he sat down for his postgame press conference Saturday, “all things come to an end eventually,” as Indiana earned its first loss of the season, 38-15, against Ohio State. The particularly difficult reality about this game for Indiana fans is that it didn’t seem like Indiana met Ohio State with full force. Ohio State absolutely influenced Indiana with its talent and scheme and was the better team, no doubt at all; the postgame win expectancy for Indiana was 0.1%. It was more than just the special teams mistakes and the false start penalty. However, anyone who’s watched this Indiana team play week-in and week-out knows Indiana had more to show than it did Saturday. The special teams mistakes, the lack of response from the offensive staff, and the mismanaged environment were all self-imposed limitations by this team, and it was uncharacteristic.

At the same time, there was an increased level of expectation applied to this game than anyone had going into this season — or even had before November, when CFP rankings were first released. At this point, Indiana sympathizers are building the Hoosiers’ case for the College Football Playoff in the face of some bad-intentioned punditry, and it left much more riding on this game than expected, or than was even fair to Indiana. I’ll link this post from On3’s Ari Wasserman again; expecting Indiana to go into Ohio Stadium, where Ohio State had lost four times in the last decade, and beat what is shaping up to be one of the best teams in the last 17 seasons (see the chart below from Brian Fremeau at bcftoys.com) is an insane one-game Litmus test.

Joel Klatt does good job here laying out why Indiana remains a logical shoe-in for the College Football Playoff, as long as it takes care of business against Purdue.

The loss to Ohio State certainly takes some wind out of this season’s sails, but it doesn’t change much in our understanding of this Indiana team. It is still the team that’s dominated it’s schedule (5th in average scoring margin against FBS teams), holds steady at 11th in FPI, owns the 5th-best CFP odds (97.4%), has the seventh-best strength of record, and is one of the most efficient teams in the nation. We now simply have a better understanding of its vulnerabilities, which frankly hadn’t really been shown or exploited to this point.

This Indiana team is not done yet.

Inside this BSB weekly recap:

• Ohio State’s Defensive Pressure

• Offense and Defense Snap Counts and PFF Grades

• Indiana Cumulative EPA Tracker, Offense and Defense

• Big Ten EPA/play Comparison

• Big Ten QB Comparison Chart

• Big Ten WR EPA/target Chart & Indiana Pass-Catcher Comparison Chart

• Big Ten DL Havoc Chart

• Big Ten OL PFF Grades Distribution

If you missed the Bite-Sized Bison Gameday Roundup after the game, it discusses scenario-based EPA, cumulative EPA, and win probability, as well as more traditional stats and their respective top performers for each team. You can find it at the button below.

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Ohio State’s Defensive Pressure

Indiana’s passing game has been the source of confidence for Indiana Football this season, and rightfully so. Kurtis Rourke was leading the Big Ten in EPA/play entering the Ohio State game and was third in the nation when adjusted for opponent (via CFBNumbers). The Hoosiers were leading the country in passing success rate as well. However, a recent trend has stunned passing production for Indiana, and it is concerning.