⚡ CFB Dashboard

In hindsight and after a full rewatch, Indiana didn't play nearly as poorly as some of the angst out there. This was still probably the sloppiest Big Ten game that I can remember under Cignetti (the bar has been set so high), but the Hoosiers also did a lot of good things in totality on both sides of the ball. — IU's run defense is legitimately great and could push to be in the "elite" club by season's end. — If/when IU's downfield passing attack improves — mostly Hoover's ability to hit the deep balls — the offense will be in so much better shape. Most of the other parts of the offense are already rounding into form nicely. I still have concerns about the right side of the OL, though. — It's hard to explain what's causing all the missed tackles from IU's defense, which has been a season-long issue. But once that gets cleaned up, the overall defensive numbers will start to look much better. It's easy to point to the secondary as a weakness (a valid concern), but it's also hard to ask DBs to play in coverage for 5+ seconds because IU can't finish sacks in the backfield. That's the complementary play I'm talking about, and what IU lacked for large portions against NU.