Indiana’s Woes Continue Against Minnesota as Defense Wore Down

Written by Matt Smith

Indiana’s defense has struggled the past couple of weeks due to injuries as well as playing tough offenses. Against Minnesota the Hoosiers’ struggled to stop the pass and the run.

The Hoosiers were dealing with injuries throughout the entire game. Micah McFadden went down towards the end of the game, Devon Matthews also went down with an injury earlier in the game. The Hoosiers also were without Cam Jones for a couple plays.

This led to the Hoosiers allowing Tanner Morgan to complete 14 of 20 passes for 196 yards and two touchdown passes. Both Touchdown passes were jump balls that the Minnesota receivers caught over a Hoosier defender. 

Ky Thomas rushed for 105 yards and two rushing touchdowns as well. The Hoosiers allowed 195 rushing yards to a tough Minnesota team.

Minnesota is built to run the football as they have a massive offensive line and that played a part in fatiguing the IU defense according to Bryant Fitzgerald.

“[Minnesota has] about seven guys over there that seems like they are about 6'7" and 380 pounds. They just get to leaning on you and it creates holes that just wear over the course of a game. Fatigues the D-Line, Fatigues the linebackers, those big bodies out there. They just do a really good job in the run schemes and figuring stuff out.” Fitzgerald said after the game.

Tom Allen said in his post game press conference that he was disappointed in the third down defense as they struggled with the 50-50 balls. 

Indiana’s front seven struggled to get past the big line of the Golden Gophers as well. They rarely got pressure on Morgan.

McFadden, Bryant Fitzgerald, and Raheem Layne were the leading tacklers with eight total tackles. 

Fitzgerald also had 1.5 tackles for loss, as did McFadden.

While the defense did struggle, much of the time they were put in bad situations because of a turnover from the offense or a bad punt from the special teams, but once the Gophers got towards the redzone, the Hoosiers couldn’t stop them. 

“It puts a ton of pressure on the defense when you can’t score points,” Allen said.