Hoosier Offense Flips the Script, Wins on the Ground

Written By: Nate Comp (@NathanComp1)

Indiana came into today’s game as one of the nation’s worst rushing teams statistically. Lined up against them were the Maryland Terrapins, one of the nation’s worst statistically at defending the rush. Something had to give.

Looking back at a 27-11 Hoosier victory, it was the Terrapin defense.

Just one week after rushing for negative yardage and relying solely on the arm of Michael Penix against Ohio State, the Hoosier offense altered the game plan this week and rushed for 234 of the team’s 349 total yards.

“That was our challenge all week, to run the football, and they loaded the box,” said Coach Allen postgame. “I knew they were going to make it hard on us, especially early, but we just kept kind of chipping away at it.”

Nothing came easy for the offense early in the game. Last week that was when the offense turned to its leader behind center, Michael Penix. Unfortunately, even before he exited the game with a lower leg injury in the third quarter, Penix never had the accuracy we had grown accustomed to seeing the past few weeks.

The attention shifted to the tailbacks. With Sampson James on the inactive list, it was up to Stevie Scott and true freshman Tim Baldwin Jr to save the day.

“I think the passing game was really struggling today, which I am sure we will improve on,” said Baldwin. “But the running game was working, so that is what led to running it down the field.”

“If our quarterback is throwing bad then it is our job to uplift him and just try to put the team on our back and try to make as many plays as we can until he can get fired up again and get things rolling,” added Scott.

In his first major playing time of his career, Baldwin fit right in with the seasoned veteran Scott. He rushed 16 times and passed the century mark in yardage at 106.

“I think it all just played in our favor today. Stevie, Sampson, Davion, all the running backs are helping make sure I am a college running back. The way I came in I was just bursting through the holes, not reading anything. It took me a while to grab patience, but you saw what I was able to do today.”

Scott finished with a fewer 80 yards on 24 carries, but he bested the young Baldwin at what he’s proven to do best during his time at Indiana: finding the endzone. Scott scored three times out of the wildcat formation, a new wrinkle to Nick Sheridan’s offense.

“We ran it a lot in practice just to get everything down pat and make sure we could execute the play, so when we come into the game we could be able to run it with no worries,” said Scott.

“It is something that we have been working on before the start of the season. We just kind of never have really gotten to it. It was just something that me and a lot of the RBs are pointing at Coach Sheridan here that I feel like that is something different that we can run with the offense.”

Ultimately, just one week after it was questioned if Indiana could ever run the ball consistently, the altered formations and play of the tailbacks brought life to the Indiana offense and led the team to victory.

“Last week we had to figure out the run game and we got that figured out this week,” concluded Allen.