Indiana Hoosiers at Nebraska Cornhuskers Match-up to Watch

Written by Sammy Jacobs (@Hoosier_Huddle)

The Indiana Hoosiers travel to Lincoln, Nebraska to face the 1-3 Cornhuskers. IU is coming off a humbling loss to Cincinnati last week. This week our eyes will be on how the Hoosier offense plays against the Husker defense.

Indiana’s Offense vs. Nebraska’s Defense

The Indiana offense has run hot and cold over the first third of the season. In the Big Ten they rank 10th in scoring (28.8 ppg), 5th in passing (292.8 ypg), 13th in rushing (114.8 ypg) and 11th in total offense (407.5 ypg). The numbers are better than last season, but there are obvious holes that need to be improved, especially in the ground game and red zone offense where IU ranks 11th in the Big Ten in scoring percentage

The Nebraska defense could provide an opportunity for the IU offense to pad or improve these stats. The Cornhusker defense is last in the Big Ten in scoring defense (35.5ppg), rushing defense (233.5 ypg), passing defense (280.5 ypg) and total defense (514 ypg). Nebraska allows points on 83.3-percent of their opponents’ red zone drives as well.

Indiana quarterback Connor Bazelak set the school record with 66 pass attempts last week at Cincinnati, the Hoosiers hope he doesn’t have to throw the ball that much on Saturday. The IU run game will also be looking for a jolt, as Allen and his staff hinted at shuffling the offensive line a bit. One can only hope that center Zach Carpenter is healthy and ready to go.

The Cornhuskers season is on the brink of falling apart, if it already hasn’t, so it can go a long way if the Hoosiers get off to a hot start offensively. Getting off to quicker starts has been on the Hoosiers minds this week as head coach Tom Allen tweaked his practice format a bit.

“We haven't started fast enough or strong enough, so we tried to do some things to help correct that ... Basically this past week, once we got ourselves stretched and physically warmed up to practice, we would go right into some type of competition; either offense versus defense, which we don't do a lot of during the season, it is mostly versus scouts, so we added that, as well as even some one-on-one work, some pod work - running backs versus linebackers, receivers and defensive backs, o-line versus d-line.” Allen said.

Saturday represents a must-win for Indiana in many ways and the path to victory starts on the offensive side of the ball for the Hoosiers.