Week 8 Preview: Rutgers

Let Bite-Sized Bison prepare you for Indiana's game Saturday!

With the IU Basketball season picking up (Hoosier Hysteria this Friday!), some basketball recruiting victories going down simultaneously, and Indiana’s on-field and press conference football struggles, things are bleak around the football fanbase post-Week 7. 

It’s entirely understandable! Fans souring on the team are supported by analytics also souring on the team. Before the Week 3 Louisville game (when I began documenting statistical profiles this season), Indiana’s average overall ranking between ESPN SP+, PFF, and FEI was 77th nationally. Today, that average ranking is 98th. 

From the non-competitive gameplan against Ohio State in Week 1, to the 21-0 first half against Louisville and the goal line call at the end, to the near-loss to Akron (now 125th in SP+, though they lost their QB), to losing their last two games 96-24 and firing their offensive coordinator in between, to returning to the QB rotation in Week 7, there have been an endless number of follies from this program concentrated into the last couple of months. It’s difficult to take Indiana seriously in any context at the moment.

But, somehow, there is room for optimism. At 2-4, Indiana has six games remaining, and its opponents average 46th overall in ESPN SP+. Remove Penn State, and the five other opponents average an SP+ ranking of 53rd. Wisconsin, the second-best opponent left on the schedule, lost its QB to injury this week. What I’m saying is there are (seemingly) at least four winnable games left on the schedule. This Rutgers game could answer the following question: Is the hill toward winning those somewhat winnable games as steep as the graph below shows?

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Previewing Rutgers

Granularly, there’s so little to point to for an Indiana advantage this week, especially on the offensive side. Rutgers’ defense is fairly stout. It allows some success on the ground, including two 200+ rushing yards games to Michigan and Wisconsin (as most teams are wont to do), but it’s allowed the 8th-fewest yards per game and is 37th in EPA/play. Despite Michigan State’s decent offensive red zone success last week, Rutgers remains 15th in the nation in defensive red zone success, where Indiana is (notoriously) 113th offensively. This defense has allowed some offensive success (as shown in the chart above) to teams like Virginia Tech (93rd offensively by SP+) and Michigan State (86th offensively by SP+), so any found offensive success might not be entirely surprising. This might be a situation where Indiana misses either of its injured RBs or would like to have a QB solidified into an offensive scheme by Week 8.

Individually, safety Flip Dixon (44 tackles, 1 TFL, 1 INT, 5 PBUs) owns the 5th-best PFF Defensive Grade in the conference, DE Aaron Lewis (26 tackles, 4 TFLs, 3 sacks) has the 5th-best pass-rush grade. and CB Robert Longerbeam (19 tackles, 1 TFL, 1 sack, 1 INT, 5 PBUs, and 2 forced fumbles) must be accounted for as well. 

Ideally on defense, if Indiana can consistently show in run defense what it flashed early in the game against Michigan, the Hoosiers can force Gavin Wimsatt to pass. Wimsatt isn’t a terrible QB – 5th in the Big Ten in QBR – but Rutgers doesn’t find nearly as much success through the air (102nd nationally) as it does on the ground. However, that’s easier said than done, as RB Kyle Monangai owns the 2nd-best PFF rushing grade in the Big Ten and is 3rd in rushing yards per game (90.7). Rutgers’ offensive line isn’t some juggernaut, though – 32nd in run-blocking and 55th in line yards per rush – so it wouldn’t surprise me if Indiana overcame its analytics a bit on the ground. 

In terms of the athletic types that burn Indiana’s defense on a near-weekly basis, WR JaQuae Jackson is one to watch. Former walk-on Christian Dremel is the lead WR, but Jackson owns the 4th-best WR receiving grade in the conference and averages 17 yards per catch. Rutgers fans are waiting on a breakout game for him, and this could be the one.

Quarterback

Somehow, we are back to a QB battle (rotation? evaluation?) at Indiana. Tom Allen said he’d hoped for more consistency from his redshirt freshmen QBs…at Michigan…with a new offensive coordinator…without their only QB coach…with no commitment to an offensive identity (triple option? run-heavy? do what “works”?)…with only a semblance of commitment to either of them this season. Obviously, none of this was part of the plan because it seems there was no cohesive plan. While I (and many others) have asked why Indiana didn’t acquire a more experienced QB in the portal, even an experienced QB would struggle to operate within this system. Expecting any consistency during a season where all healthy entering QBs totaled 10 pass attempts is astounding, much less within the parameters that have been set.

This has become so dysfunctional that it’s steered the offensive conversations nearly entirely away from the — oft-discussed in 2022 — fact that Indiana’s OL ranks 111th in pass-blocking and 72nd in run-blocking. I’m sure the offensive linemen appreciate it, though.

Any way you slice it, the offense hasn’t been successful with either QB, and neither shares the entire blame for that. Indiana’s success rate on passing plays peaked at 43rd in the nation before the Akron game (has since fallen to 62nd), yet Indiana continues to convey itself as a run-first offense, even though it sits at 13th in the Big Ten in rushing yards per game (107.2). Tayven Jackson has flashed but is still 115th in total QBR this season and began the season leading a triple option attack he can’t maximize — graded 243rd out of 250 non-RB ball carriers. Brendan Sorsby clearly has a good arm and posted the best rushing grade by either QB last week, but he leads the country in percentage of pressure dropbacks (50.7%) and has only seen meaningful snaps against Ohio State and Michigan. It speaks volumes for both of them (and for Big Ten QB play in 2023) that their passing grades remain at 8th (Sorsby) and 10th (Jackson) in the conference.

Allen said the QB rotation is finished and that they’ve decided on the starting QB, yet Dexter Williams will soon become available, as they’re increasing his practice reps and want to get him in the mix. So is Williams ultimately QB1? It wouldn’t surprise me if that was the case, following the way 2022 ended. Given Rod Carey’s previous offenses at Northern Illinois and the sudden change in Indiana’s offensive philosophy once he took over for Darren Hiller at OL coach, I wouldn’t be shocked if Carey turned to Williams as soon as possible to run a form of the offense that defeated Michigan State on 7 pass attempts in 2022. He is certainly the most capable of the QBs to run that specific system, as he finished last season with the 106th-best non-RB rushing grade in the nation. But after an offseason of recovering from his knee injury, I’d have my doubts regarding much improvement on his nationally worst 34.2% completion percentage last year.

None of this is an indictment on any of these QBs. Indiana’s offense has just been awful since 2020.

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