Indiana's Defense Finishes Strong After Some Struggles

Written By Nick Gonzales (@nrgonzales_)

Another week and another victory in the books for the Hoosiers after defeating Northwestern 41-24. Indiana has now become the first bowl eligible team in the country and the first FBS school to reach six wins this season. While the Hoosiers looked great yet again, the defense continues to struggle, especially with giving up big plays.

The Hoosiers’ defense has continued to look dominant to start the game allowing 0 points in the first quarter in all six games this season. They also have looked great with their pass defense to start the season allowing 123.5 passing yards per game, 0.5 passing touchdowns per game, and 1.75 turnovers a game in their first four games of the season. Through their first four games, they also only allowed 9.25 points per game. However, with improved competition as the season progresses, the quarterback talent will be a lot more difficult to counter. In the past two games, the Hoosiers have allowed 532 passing yards and 5 touchdowns through the air with zero turnovers caused. In Saturday’s game against Northwestern, they let Jack Lausch move around too freely in the pocket which led to him extending plays and making plays with his legs.

“I’ll be honest, that quarterback, he was mobile. That’s definitely something we haven’t seen as much this year. So, the quarterback, he had a great game for sure. He made a couple of great passes down the field.” Mikail Kamara stated in an interview after the game on why the defense struggled some.

Mikail Kamara has done a great job with pressuring the quarterback (one of, if not the top player in the Big Ten in QB pressures) and made his 5th sack today against Northwestern. Nonetheless, Indiana must address this issue with teams like Nebraska and Ohio State coming up this season who have talented receivers and quarterbacks that will expose weaknesses that are present in the Hoosiers defense. While they do have some notable weaknesses, the defense makes sure to play tough and finish the game well.

“I think it goes back to culture, and especially us as a defense having our point goals. We didn’t reach it today, but our goal is not letting them score more than 17 points. So, every time you go out on the field, you want to make sure that they don’t get to that point. And when it comes to finishing, we don’t want to put anything bad on tape. We don’t want to have missed gaps or missed fits or anything for other teams to see that and trying to play off of that.” Mikail Kamara replied on how the defense strives to finish well in a post-game interview.

Although the Hoosiers may have struggled during some portions of the game, it was harder for the defense to stop the Wildcats with the absence of Jailin Walker (due to injury) in the second half of play. Walker has been great at the linebacker position so far this season but left the game at half with his pads off and didn’t return for the second half of action. Despite that loss, the Hoosiers finished the game strong.

“But I really liked the way we finished the game defensively the last two drives. I really liked that a lot.” Coach Cignetti stated in his postgame press conference.

Though they gave up big plays on defense in Saturday’s game, the Hoosiers have given up on average 14.83 points per game with the two highest scoring opponents being the last two weeks (Northwestern with 24 and Maryland with 28). Their defense has still looked great for the majority of the game and if they can clean up some of their mistakes, then it’ll look good for them going forward.

Indiana has a bye week upcoming which gives players more time to rest and rejuvenate. While it is still unknown what Jailin Walker is dealing with, it gives him plus true freshman Mario Landino (who is helpful in the rotation of defensive linemen and keeping them fresh) some time before their next game in Bloomington against Nebraska on Saturday October 19th. Until then, the Hoosiers defense will have some much-needed rest after going 6-0 for the first time since 1967 and preparing to face a tough opponent when the Cornhuskers come to town.