Week 3 Preview: Louisville
This week will provide the most substantial evidence for what to expect from IUFB this season. Prepare for the game with this preview!
It’s finally here, the game that will provide the most substantial evidence for what to expect from Indiana Football this season. We learned far more about this team than I expected against Ohio State and Indiana State, and that’s likely a testament to how many questions there were coming in. Now, though, in a matchup that leans Louisville's way – but not as much as it leaned Ohio State’s way – we can watch a program Tom Allen and the staff were clearly preparing for this week.
Some helpful resources as we go into this game:
Louisville snapshot
Louisville opened its season with games against Georgia Tech (39-34) and Murray State (56-0). Keep this in mind as we get into Louisville’s overall profile. Jeff Brohm is incorporating his system Indiana fans are so familiar with from Purdue, and he’s doing so after adding former Purdue QB and successful Cal QB Jack Plummer (along with several other talented transfers) to an already decently talented roster. This won’t be easy for Indiana by any means, but the double-digit favor of Louisville seems suspect to me.
Sources: Pro Football Focus, College Football Data, Massey
Explosion is Key
Louisville relies on explosion, primarily from its passing game. We know this because we know Jeff Brohm, and after Louisville’s first two games, it’s clear this is how they’ll approach Indiana too. Against two weak opponents in Georgia Tech and Murray State, Louisville recorded a total offensive success rate of 58% and a plus grade in passing explosion. However, QB Jack Plummer ranks 53rd in the country in QBR (63) – just a 58 against Murray State – because of his 4-to-3 touchdown-to-interception ratio. His passing grade is also 113th nationally. So that explosion is hit or miss.
Louisville also has shown an ability to get explosion from its rushing attack. It ranks 3rd in the nation in yards per carry, with 7.32. Jawhar Jordan – one of a two-headed backfield – is their primary dynamite here, as he averages 17 yards per carry (116 rushing yards per game) and 16 yards per reception. Indiana will be the most formidable defensive front Louisville will have seen to date, so its plus figure of 3.7 line yards per rush will be tested here.
I mentioned in a season preview of the 4-2-5 that this formation typically allows explosive plays, even at the highest levels. Indiana will need to stay tight Saturday at Lucas Oil, or it will be costly.
Indiana has not seen as much explosion in its offense as it would like, posting no plus (and no minus) figures in either rushing or passing explosion. It also gains fewer second-level yards per rush than it allows (already a small number), which isn’t great. Tom Allen has preached a desire for explosion in the offense, so Walt Bell will have to show what the offense has at its disposal to match an offense that’s posted the 4th-most yards per game in the nation.
Louisville’s Passing Attack
The Indiana secondary remains fairly untested. Ohio State didn’t necessarily target the perimeter, and, as discussed in the postgame recap, didn’t use Marvin Harrison Jr. or Emeka Egbuka as we’d expect otherwise. The secondary basically could have taken the day off against Indiana State too, as the front seven wielded a 20% havoc rate. This is the week we discover exactly what the IU secondary, and many other areas, is capable of.
Georgia State transfer WR Jamari Thrash is the key playmaker in this offense. His receiving grade is only 14th in the ACC, but he is 5th nationally (70 WRs with 15+ targets) in YAC per reception, with 11.3. That’s on top of a 12-yard average depth of target. Thrash, along with Kevin Coleman (12th-best receiving grade in ACC), make a good WR duo, and both RBs (Jordan and Isaac Guerendo) combine for 8 targets and are effective when used on passing downs as well.
The direction that Plummer throws will be important to Indiana’s success and may indicate where this defense is soft in coverage. Brohm uses a lot of WRs to spread out the defense, as the top-four most-targeted WRs line up outside and in slot, so there will be far more one-on-one situations than we’ve seen from IU so far. The CBs will undoubtedly be tested on the perimeters more than we’ve seen, and Noah Pierre at Husky will be needed in coverage more than the first two games. We saw Ohio State attack the center of the field against Indiana; I’d expect Louisville to do the same. Below is where Plummer has been most and least successful.
Source: Pro Football Focus
Notes:
Louisville is extremely effective on short-center passes. Thrash owns 136 of those 220 yards, and 107 of them are YAC.
Plummer is 2-for-5 in the deep-right area, and we saw Marvin Harrison Jr. nearly catch a TD here against IU if it were not for a flag that the officials admitted was the incorrect call.
Intermediate-center is an area Louisville goes to a lot with little success. However, this is a naturally vulnerable area of the field in 4-2-5 defenses. That will be a test.
What makes Brohm’s offensive scheme successful is the way the WR routes play off of each other (often with multiple crossing/rail routes), and this is what makes Thrash so dangerous. This strategy puts pressure on the LBs to be accountable in coverage more than they’ve felt to this point, and that pressure opens up space for the run game.
The renewed physicality we’ve seen from the defense will need to be present Saturday. Indiana’s defense can’t get caught on its heels. Louisville is ranked by PFF as the 16th-best pass-blocking offensive line in the country (though that’s not adjusted to opponents). The chart below shows the pass-blocking grades for Lousivlle’s game against Georgia Tech, and also where responsibility has fallen on percentages of pass-rush pressures.
Source: Pro Football Focus
I’ll be interested to see how Indiana uses Andre Carter, given this information. He primarily lines up on the left side of the line, which would set him up against Louisville's best pass-blocking OL. But Carter also often lines up on the right side as well. Setting up the Bulls opposite the least effective pass-blocking OL might be smart. Everything our eyes tell us makes it clear that Carter is a monster, but his PFF grades have yet to show this – 65 Defensive Grade, 72 run-defense grade, 61 pass-rush grade. This could be the game for him. Philip Blidi and Marcus Burris have also been graded as the best pass rushers (each grading 70) on the team, which will be important in applying pressure on Plummer.
Last Notes on the QB Battle
To this point, Louisville allows nearly as much explosion from opposing passing downs as it creates on the offensive side, which is good news for Tayven Jackson, who is now QB1.
After Tom Allen noted that he had seen enough after two weeks of rotating QBs, I wanted to revisit my ideas of both of them. We knew very little coming in, and on the little information we did have, I was preparing myself for Jackson to back up Brendan Sorsby (read more on that here, if you haven't already). Jackson opened many eyes, including mine, once he was able to throw the ball against Indiana State. He finished last week with the 4th-best QBR in the Big Ten, behind JJ McCarthy (Michigan), Kyle McCord (Ohio State), and Drew Allar (Penn St.). Brendan Sorsby actually finished 7th. That got me thinking: What does Indiana actually have here with these QBs? I found the following notes:
Jackson
4th-best passing grade in the nation in Week 2
2nd-best season-long passing grade in the Big Ten
3rd-best passing grade on throws 20+ yards downfield in the Big Ten
3rd-best passing grade in less than 2.5 seconds in the Big Ten
Sorsby
6th-best season-long passing grade in the Big Ten
5th-best passing grade 10-19 yards downfield in the Big Ten
2nd-best passing grade when under pressure in the Big Ten
6th-most missed tackles forced by non-RB players in the nation
My takeaway here is two-fold: 1.) This is a bit of an indictment on Big Ten QBs in 2023, and 2.) Indiana actually has two QBs (not counting Dexter…yet?) who could play quality football at the QB position. We will obviously learn more about this Saturday and then in Big Ten play, but between the toughest opponent and the least tough opponent IU will play, this is the takeaway.
My hope is that Indiana sticks with one QB and rides that offense into the rest of the schedule – or, I guess, as long as that QB lasts given recent QB injury history in Bloomington. Here’s a video of Mike Penix discussing his injury history throughout his career.
With that said, three of Louisville’s starting DBs allow passer ratings above 100, and aside from Devin Neal’s interception, the Cardinals have struggled to find a reliable coverage safety. Jarvis Brownlee at CB has been fantastic, only allowing 1 catch on 7 targets, and Quincy Riley and Storm Duck are rotating at CB2, which has seen its struggles.
Georgia Tech, an offense ranked 82nd in the nation in Offensive FEI – offensive scoring advantage per drive adjusted by opponent difficulty – posted a BCF offensive game rating ranked 42nd in the country against this Louisville defense. Louisville's defensive FEI rating was outside of the top-100 that week.
Other Notable Stats Unmentioned in this Preview
I want to fit all of the stats/facts in my pieces, but sometimes, some notable stats aren’t super pertinent to my bites of narratives. I’m going to try to place various notes near the bottom in the future.
Omar Cooper leads the team in targets, with 10. His receiving grade is 5th among the 25 Big Ten WRs with at least 10 targets.
A “scoring opportunity” is defined by College Football Data as any drive that crosses the opponent’s 40-yard line. Indiana’s defense has allowed 8 scoring opportunities and has allowed only 2.8 points per opportunity. That’s a plus figure and much lower than I’d have expected with Ohio State as one of two opponents.
James Evans remains 4th in the nation (1st in B1G) in yards per punt attempt, with 53.4.
LB Josh Rudolph has played just 9 snaps but has recorded a TFL and a PBU. He has the highest PFF Defensive Grade on the team (lol).
Indiana is 21st in the country in third-down conversion percentage (54.84%).
Indiana converted 33 first downs against Indiana State.