Five Takeaways From Indiana's Loss at Michigan State
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Image: IUHoosiers.com
Written Andrew Walker
The Indiana Football Hoosiers made the trip to East Lansing, Michigan to do battle with the Spartans. MSU went on to beat the Hoosiers after a long four quarters of back and forth action. Indiana came close, but close just wasn’t enough. Let’s take a look at five takeaways from the game.
1. Mike Penix is the truth.
Despite the gut-wrenching loss, one thing is for sure: Mike Penix is an incredible talent at QB. After two games sitting on the bench, Penix came in and outperformed everyone’s expectations. The freshman QB completed 33 of 42 for 286 yards and 3 TDs. Penix even surprised everyone with 20s consecutive completions. That’s a school record. Penix’s success was even more incredible, based on the fact that MSU’s defense is ranked #7 overall according to NCAA.com. With Penix hopefully starting the rest of the season, Indiana’s chances of going to a bowl are anything but over.
2. Indiana’s defense was stout, until it wasn’t.
This is a bit of an intriguing argument to make, but Indiana was able to stop MSU most of the time. The defensive success from the first quarter to the middle of the fourth was what kept Indiana in that game. There were many times where MSU was driving down the field and the Hoosiers were able to get a stop and force the punt. I’ll mark that down as a win any day. Indiana just couldn’t get it done late in the fourth, and let up some big gains on MSU’s last scoring drive.
3. Indiana’s ground game couldn’t come alive.
MSU’s stout defensive line had all the game plan in the world to stop Stevie Scott and co. Scott and Ronnie Walker Jr. led the ground attack, and both of them combined couldn’t reach 100 yards rushing. Even with the other RB’s took their turn, none of them managed to make anything out of the situation.
4. Hoosier offensive line was pretty strong.
Even with the untimely and unfortunate season ending injury to veteran offensive lineman Coy Cronk, Indiana’s pass protection was pretty solid against a defense that averages just over three sacks a game. MSU didn’t have any sacks on Saturday. The run blocking was a different story though. By the time Stevie Scott broke through an initial hole on the line, MSU’s linebackers pummeled the Indiana run game.
5. WR corps can make difficult catches now
A few weeks ago, the main gripe of the Hoosier receivers was their inability to make 50/50 plays with a ball heading their way. Donovan Hale and Whop Philyor single handedly made that argument a thing of the past. Hale even grabbed a nice contested one handed grab in the endzone to tie the game.