Game Day Primer: Indiana Hoosiers vs. No. 5 Ohio State Buckeyes

Written by: TJ Inman (@TJHoosierHuddle)

What: Indiana Hoosiers (2-4) vs. #5 Ohio State Buckeyes (5-1)

When: Saturday, October 23 at 7:30 on ABC

Where: Memorial Stadium in Bloomington, IN

How to Watch: The game will be broadcast on ABC and can be heard on the IU Radio Network.

Series History: You don’t need to be an IU football expert to know this matchup has been incredibly one-sided through the years. To put it bluntly, IU almost never beats Ohio State on the gridiron. BLANK

What’s at Stake: The Indiana Hoosiers anemic offense cost them another contest against a top ten team last week. It’s fair to say this team is very close to beating both Cincinnati and Michigan State and things looking very, very different in Bloomington. However, this is not “horseshoes or hand grenades” and coming close does not count. IU sits at 2-4 and heavy underdogs to Ohio State. If they fall to 2-5, they’ll travel to Maryland with zero margin for error if they are to make another bowl game. Saturday represents their fifth game against top ten opposition, a truly ridiculous stat, and the Hoosiers have very little pressure this time out as virtually no one expects anything other than a Buckeye route. After an early season loss to Oregon, Ohio State has righted the ship and appear poised to make another run at the Big Ten Championship and a College Football Playoff berth. Needless to say, they can’t trip up in Bloomington if they are to accomplish those goals.

A FEW THINGS TO LOOK FOR

1.    Can the Hoosiers Find Any Offense?

Another week, another inept offensive showing. I’ll leave the headline I’ve had for the past two games and this will be question number one each outing until the Hoosiers show some answers in attack. Jack Tuttle took over at quarterback and attempted more than 50 passes for less than 200 yards of completions. IU had some explosive runs from walk-on running backs but the wide receivers continued to struggle and there was no dynamism from the passing game. Without big plays, the Hoosiers are forced to put together long drives and the execution in the red zone has been absolutely brutal. IU has 24 trips to the red zone this season and has only scored 12 touchdowns. If you look at just Big Ten play, they have 7 trips inside the 20 with only one touchdown (which happens to be their lone touchdown in conference competition). No team can win with numbers like that.

2.    Will the Defense Stay Plugged In?

IU’s defense has played well enough to win games. In fact, they were outstanding against Michigan State. In particular, the rush defense and the play of Micah McFadden and Cam Jones really stood out. It has to be demoralizing to continue to play at a high-level without winning games because of a lack of production on the other side of the ball. IU is hoping to get Reece Taylor and Tiawan Mullen back for Saturday and that would be very beneficial going against the best offense in the Big Ten. The Buckeyes have a growing quarterback in C.J. Stroud and a stud freshman running back in TreVeyon Henderson (8.74 yards per carry with nine touchdowns). The stars of this attack though are the wide receivers. Garrett Wilson, Chris Olave and Jaxon Smith-Njigba might be the best trio in college football. The Buckeyes score on nearly everybody and they’ve had success against IU’s defense recently. They had 42 in 2020, 51 in a blowout win in 2019 and 49 in 2018. The way that IU’s offense has struggled, it seems likely the Hoosiers will need to keep Ohio State’s offense well below what they typically score in order to stay in this game.

3.    Changes

Jack Tuttle started last week at quarterback and we saw some small wrinkles on offense but by and large, the results were the same. Donaven McCulley, a true freshman quarterback from Indianapolis, was mentioned by Tom Allen as a player they’d like to get more looks. Allen also pointed out that the offensive line might see some new combinations in an effort to find something that clicks. The Hoosiers have several young wide receivers that should perhaps get a chance to perform better than those that have received the playing time so far this season. Things have not gone well and you might as well play some different guys and find out what you have. A victory on Saturday as 19-point underdogs is incredibly unlikely but the Hoosiers need to find some answers before heading to Maryland to play a very beatable Terrapins team.