Week 9 Recap: Penn State
Indiana snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory in Happy Valley, but could there be some positives to take away from the game?
I, along with many others, was extremely pessimistic heading into the Penn State matchup. There really was little precedent for the close 33-24 loss, but there was, unfortunately, plenty of precedent for Indiana fumbling an opportunity against the No. 10 team in the country. CollegeFootballData.com recorded Indiana’s postgame win expectancy as 70%, and ESPN SP+ had the same stat at 56%. For several reasons (special teams mishaps, lack of aggression in late-game drives, allowing an explosive play to the least-explosive offense, etc.), it was a huge missed opportunity for Indiana.
CrimsonCast graciously had me on immediately after the loss, and I expressed many frustrations there.
Even though the missed opportunity stings, especially because this could be the dead cat trick Indiana Football always offers, there were actually some positive statistically and analytically driven notes from this game. Trusting the staff to maintain the successful pieces is what I struggle with personally. I’ll highlight those, along with some of the negatives of course, below. But first, the traditional PFF grades, snap counts, and statistics…
Notable Snap Counts
Indiana showed some unique looks defensively – including snaps that included two Bulls, two LBs, and 6 DBs. Most notably, Indiana played the fewest Husky snaps of the season with Noah Pierre out.
The most notable snap count figure of the game was Anthony Jones’. With Noah Pierre out at Husky, it seems pretty clear Indiana wants to play Jones at a hybrid Bull/Husky position, which earned him a season-high 52 snaps.
Indiana seems to be confident in its rotations at CB and DT.
With Cam Camper out, Omar Cooper played the most WR snaps – his second-highest snap count of the season (53 vs. Maryland).
Jaylin Lucas played a season-low 15 snaps. 11 of those were passing snaps. He continues to see that share of his snaps rise.
EJ Williams continues to work his way back from injury, as he posted a season-high 26 snaps.
Josh Sanguinetti played 74 snaps in place of Phillip Dunnam. There is a clear drop-off here, as Sanguinetti recorded just 1 tackle all game, though he did have the interception that led to Indiana tying the game.
Notable Statistics
Aaron Casey led the team in missed tackles, with 4. He leads all Big Ten defenders with 18 missed tackles and is 3rd among Big Ten LBs (min. 300 snaps) with a 20.9% missed tackle rate. His 18 missed tackles are also more than he totaled in 2022 (16).
Indiana’s yards per dropback (12.28) would have finished in the top 2% of all 2022 FBS performances. Its EPA/rush (-0.08) would’ve ranked in the bottom 35%.
Brendan Sorsby’s QBR (79.8) versus Penn State finished second in the conference for Week 9. His season-long QBR (60.2) is 6th in the Big Ten and 63rd nationally. Some QBs he bests are Jack Plummer (Louisville), Cade Klubnik (Clemson), Emory Jones (Cincinnati), KJ Jefferson (Arkansas), Hudson Card (Purdue).
Jaylin Lucas was used on just 2% of offensive plays, tied with EJ Williams and Bradley Archer for fewest on the team. He totaled -5 yards on 1 touch. While the offense still found some success without his production, he still leads the team in targets (39), which ranks 20th in the conference. Rod Carey has to find a way to get him involved even when defenses key on him. Not designing an offense to do is a massive indictment on this staff.
Between kickoffs and punts, Lucas has returned 18 kicks (19th-most nationally). He is graded 22nd out of 90 qualifying kickoff returners and last (68th out of 68) of qualifying punt returners.
Penn State posted a better offensive success rate against Iowa’s No. 20 defense than it did against Indiana’s (40%). Penn State’s lowest passing success rate of the season was 33% against Ohio State in Week 8. It recorded a 34% passing success rate against Indiana. However, Indiana allowed a 47.5% rushing success rate, which is awful.
In absolute hilarity, Penn State’s worst defensive EPA came against Indiana’s offense in Week 9 (10.76). Against Ohio State, the Nittany Lions’ defensive EPA was 3.73!
Penn State also allowed the most total line yards to Indiana this week. Indiana’s offensive line gained 94 total yards at the line. Ohio State’s OL only gained 73.
Indiana’s passing success rate was unprecedented. The Hoosiers found success on 50% of their passing plays. Penn State’s defense hadn’t allowed a success rate even close to that all season. Against Ohio State, it allowed a 43% passing success rate – the highest rate previously.
No Husky, No Problem
I wrote before the season began that, since Marcelino Ball featured at Husky, Indiana has really struggled to not only find a player with the skillset needed to play the position but also how the Husky fits within its defensive scheme year-to-year. This year, while Noah Pierre has certainly shown improvement (22nd in PFF Defensive Grade among Big Ten safeties) – thanks in large part to better safety play next to him – there are still moments where communication in the secondary breaks down in ways that are similar to recent seasons. And it appears Pierre is the only man on the roster who can effectively play the spot as needed.
So once Pierre was injured, Indiana changed its strategy on defense, and we saw it against Penn State. Rather than rotating Jordan Grier and Amare Farrell at Husky, Indiana went heavy with Grier when Husky was needed (31 snaps) but also turned to Anthony Jones, who has shown signs throughout the season of handling Husky duties (in addition to his Bull position). Jones played a season-high 52 snaps, many of which utilized his diverse skillset without a Husky on the field.
Due to his size, Jones certainly cannot play in coverage like Pierre can, but he wasn’t asked to. Jones played 7 coverage snaps against Penn State, but he rushed the passer more than Pierre typically does, recording 17 pass-rush snaps to Pierre’s season-high of 3. Ideally, this will take pressure off the LBs and Bulls, which reflected in the boosted PFF Defensive Grades of Jacob Mangum-Farrar, Lanell Carr, and Myles Jackson.
The result? The lowest allowed success rate versus an FBS opponent (41.2%) this season.
Jones finished with 5 tackles and third on the team (behind Aaron Casey and Andre Carter) in individual stops, with 2. I hope we get to see more of Jones in this role because 1.) he’s a fun football player to watch and could use the development, and 2.) because it just makes sense.
Indiana has the 19th-, 21st-, and 22nd-best Big Ten coverage CBs in Toomer, Minor, and Sharpe, and the 8th- and 16th-best coverage safeties in Moore and Dunnam. Combined with the Big Ten’s QB woes this season (only 2 Big Ten teams in the national top-50 in passing offense), Indiana can afford to add a body to the box in a conference that places 6 teams in the national top-50 in rushing offense, including Wisconsin at No. 50.
As noted in the Notable Snap Counts, Indiana got pretty creative in its defensive looks at Penn State too. This might have led to some of the defensive success it saw overall. There were a few snaps where Indiana rolled out two LBs, two Bulls (including Jones), five DBs, one DT, and Andre Carter. With this talent and multiplicity, there is no reason why Indiana shouldn’t replicate this last defensive performance each week left this season, even without Pierre.
Passing?
I noted in the last Bite-Sized Bison that Indiana was focusing heavily on getting the rushing game going. The trend showed that while Indiana was seeing gradual increases in its rushing attack (even before Rod Carey), it corresponded with a near-equal decrease in the passing game. The graphic below lays this out, including the steady degradation of the offense, according to SP+.
However, against Penn State, Indiana recorded its third-highest success rate on passing plays (50%), only bested by games against Indiana State (55%) and Louisville (52%). Success rate is the best way to measure in this game because of Indiana’s two explosive plays from Dequece Carter and Donaven McCulley. Success rate isolates consistent success, rather than big plays. If you’re curious, Indiana’s passing-play explosion (2.30 EPA per successful passing play) was, by far, its best (1.68 vs. Akron). Indiana achieved that 50% success rate without its best WR and against a Penn State defense that came into the game ranked No. 1 in the nation in defensive success against passing plays, allowing 26.2% success.
Brendan Sorsby finished the game 13-for-19 (68.4%) for 269 yards, 3 touchdowns, and an interception. His QBR (79.8) was second-best in the Big Ten, bringing his season-long QBR up to 6th in the conference. If he sustains his 60.2 season-long QBR, it will finish higher than Richard Lagow ever finished in 2016-17 and closer to Michael Penix’s 2020 QBR of 67.7 than anyone would’ve guessed. Peyton Ramsey and Nate Sudfeld consistently finished above 70.
It was certainly far from perfect. Sorsby posted a dismal Offensive Grade (28) when under pressure, as the 9 defensive pressures he faced resulted in: 3 sacks, 3 scrambles, the interception, a 15-yard completion, and an incompletion. But when kept clean, which was a remarkable 69% of the time (19th in the nation in Week 9), he posted the 5th-best Offensive Grade in the conference – 14th nationally in completion percentage (75%), 9th nationally in yards (254), and 2nd nationally in yards per attempt (15.9).
This seemed like a great example of Rod Carey doing “what works” for the Indiana offense, turning to a QB who’s proven to be a top-half Big Ten QB to throw to the strength of the offense, it’s WRs. Dequece Carter, Donanven McCulley, and Omar Cooper each posted three of the top-7 WR Offensive Grades in the conference this week. Unfortunately for Indiana, Carey and the offense got away from throwing on first downs, where they’re ranked top-5 in the conference, as the Hoosiers ran on 16 of 23 first down plays (H/T Andy Bottoms). This would notoriously pop up later in the game.
Also, much of Indiana’s success seemed to come from Penn State defensive breakdowns, and Indiana entered halftime with just a 25% offensive success rate (very bad!). IU finished the game with a 37% success rate, which is also very bad. However, a low success rate was expected from an offense ranked 126th in EPA/play entering the game. A 50% passing success rate was not expected! That might also lead to further questions regarding one particular drive after a particular defensive takeaway during a particular point in the game…
Really liked the different defensive alignments you spoke of that created success. Still can’t believe what I saw on offense after the pick. Playing to keep from winning. Almost seems on purpose. As always, great work on your stats and explanation thereof.
Hi Taylor;
IU seemed to do pretty well with Trent Howland running the ball. I was there at the game, and seem to recall that IU was getting 2nd and 6 and 3rd and 2 on that one drive. Howland seemed to just always be bouncing off of hits for additional yards. And then they seemed to go back to rushing Josh Henderson, culminating in the "Let's not try to win the game" series after the interception on Allar.
Was there something in the stats that would indicate that Henderson was doing better than Howland in the second half?
I also did see IU target Lucas early in the game. (a ball that went right through his fingers) and then a crossing pattern in which Sorsby and Lucas clearly weren't on the same page. After that, it did seem as though our new OC seemed to give up on Lucas.
I was kinda hoping to see a 2 back backfield, with Lucas and Howland, as they're both such different runners. Is that no longer done in football? Howland does a nice dive running, and would be an excellent blind-side pass blocker. Lucas could run jet sweeps (as we did see him fake that) and take pitches in the triple option idea, and he wouldn't be responsible for keeping his QB alive on blitzes. He could leak out and take a LB or safety with him.
IU's wide receivers seem to be pretty good?
How would you grade IU O-line compared to last year and the year before? It seems like IU's QBs are no longer running for their lives? What do the numbers say?
And while I am still really upset at watching IU throw away the game, was this game a hint that IU has a chance to still save its season? Wisconsin. Illinois. Michigan State. Purdue. Or was I watching a mirage caused by the titanic game between OSU-PSU last week? Has Allen already thrown away his coaching job or does he still have a chance to get 5 wins including a win vs Purdue and save his job?