Week 5 Recap: Iowa (Part 1)

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

Due to a delay from one of BSB’s data sources, Part 1 of this week’s Recap features a hyper focus on the Iowa game, while most of the charts and graphs will come later this week. Thank you for your patience.

ALSO, In case you missed the immediate Week 5 takeaways Saturday night in the BSB Chat, I’ve linked them here. Many of them are expanded upon in this Recap.

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Indiana went to Kinnick Stadium, where it had won just one time in the 21st Century, and won, 20-15, to push its record to 5-0 going into the bye week. And while it was a nail-biter, with Elijah Sarratt’s 49-yard TD being the difference, it was more statistically sound than Indiana’s win against Old Dominion. The Hoosiers’ postgame win expectancy — If a game were replayed with the same stats and circumstances, how many times would the team have won? — was 96.5% at Iowa, higher than its 91.2% versus Old Dominion.

Indiana is now 3rd in ESPN SP+. The Hoosiers are approaching the peak standing in the chart below:

Additional notes here:

• SP+ is beginning to respect Old Dominion as the Monarchs put ground between themselves and their 2024 season. They’re now ranked No. 65 in SP+ (No. 54 in FPI), which is four and five spots behind Wisconsin and Michigan State, respectively. If Indiana’s schedule were split into tiers, ODU is currently sitting in the third tier with those two teams.

• This was a considerable resume-building week for Indiana, with ODU winning its game against Liberty, Illinois (SP+ No. 25) winning against USC, upcoming opponent Oregon (SP+ No. 1) beating Penn State, and even Kennesaw State (now SP+ No. 115) winning its third consecutive game since losing to Indiana. Indiana’s strength of schedule sits at 74th in FPI with the 27th toughest post-Week 5 strength of schedule on deck.

This win was Curt Cignetti’s 10th Big Ten victory, as Indiana is now 10-1 in conference play since Cignetti arrived in Bloomington. For reference, Tom Allen went 18-43 in his seven seasons, and Indiana won just 9 conference games in the four seasons preceding Cignetti.

With Indiana now ranked No. 8 in the AP Poll, there is a strong chance its matchup with Oregon in Eugene is a top-10 game on CBS in a couple weeks.

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Indiana Offensive Snap Counts & Grades