Indiana Defense Responds to Adversity in First Test Against Maryland

Written by Ben Gillard

Great teams play complementary football. If one side of the ball struggles, then it is up to the other side to pick up the slack. Today, the Indiana offense had its fair share of struggles against a talented Maryland defense. The Hoosiers were bitten early by the turnover bug, and quickly the infection started to spread. By the end of the game, the IU offense had turned the ball over four times, with two interceptions thrown by Kurtis Rourke and a pair of fumbles by Rourke and Kaelon Black.

This is where the Indiana defense stepped up, ensuring that the Terrapins were not able to score any points off of the turnovers. As one of the leaders of the IU defense, linebacker Aiden Fisher understands the importance of complementary football. After the game, he said, “We know our offense is explosive. We’re a complementary team, so if the offense isn’t firing, we’ve got to pick up our end of the bargain and take care of the offense. And at some point they are going to turn around and do exactly what they did. So it was big for us to answer the call every time we turned the ball over and being able to [hold] them to no points.”

In addition to holding Maryland to no points off turnovers, Fisher and the defense also held Maryland to no first downs off turnovers. The Terrapins went three-and-out on all four of their drives following Indiana turnovers. Aiden Fisher explained the mindset of the defense following a turnover, saying, “They [Maryland] think they have the momentum now; they’re trying to build on that, and this game is just full of momentum, so once you get that rolling, it’s hard to stop … so what we’re trying to do is stop that momentum before it even gets started.” 

When asked about how the defense was able to respond to adversity, Fisher said, “I think that was a great test for us. We’re a new team, with a lot of new faces; you need to face adversity at some point in your season, so doing that today was awesome, and looking at the way we responded, I think it was even better for our team going forward.” 

Defensive Lineman Mikail Kamara echoed this sentiment, saying, “I think we handled it well; everyone kept their heads up on the sidelines; people were still communicating; no one put their heads down. We responded, we had turnovers, we had the one-play touchdown; that’s usually where losing teams, they probably get down on themselves and argue … but we handled it really well.”

Both Fisher and Kamara attribute part of the defense’s success today to the energy the crowd at Memorial Stadium brought. “The fans really made this a great atmosphere for us; I guess they got Coach Cig’s email. So that was big, getting them here and packing the Rock.”  Fisher said. Kamara expanded upon this saying, “As a defender, when all that crowd noise is going, you’re not really thinking; you’re just going out there playing and reacting. So it kind of makes you play faster, and then now we’re just hitting, and once we make a play and everyone’s screaming, that adrenaline just keeps flowing.”