Mikail Kamara Steamrolls the MSU Offensive Line

Written By Nick Gonzales (@nrgonzales_)

For the first time ever since the start of Indiana’s football program 137 years ago, the Indiana Hoosiers are 9-0 and hungry for more. After a rough start in the first quarter, it seemed as if the Hoosiers wouldn’t be able to contain Michigan State’s quarterback, Aidan Chiles. However, Indiana’s defense was able to adjust at lightning speed and dominate the Spartans offensive line.

“We weren’t worried. 10 (to) nothing. The offense stalled out a little at the beginning and then the defense let up a couple of drives. You know, cool, calm, collected, that’s what they preach to us. When adversity hits, we got to be ready to respond.” James Carpenter responded when asked how they handled trailing for the first time this season.

The Hoosiers’ front seven was led by the JMU transfer Mikail Kamara today and he did not disappoint. It seemed as if Kamara was living in the opponent’s backfield by the amount of times he would get off his blockers and pressure the quarterback. The defensive lineman was tearing through the MSU offense all night and ended the game with 7 total tackles (4.5 tackles for a loss) and 2.5 sacks. When Mikail was asked if this was the most relentless performance the defense has had in a post-game interview, he responded with “For sure. It’s not the last though but this is definitely trending in the right direction. We still got a lot of things to clean up, which is probably scary for anyone else we have to play but I like the way we’re heading”

He is right that teams who haven’t played them yet should be worried. Indiana finished the game with 15 tackles for a loss and 7 sacks, which seems almost unheard of.

“15 tackles for a loss, 7 sacks. See I don’t have the full composite in front of me, but that’s really impressive. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen those kinds of numbers on a team that I coached. That’s a great credit to our defensive players (and) staff. They got after them up front. You have to win up front. First thing you got to do to win games is win up front on both sides of the ball,” Coach Cignetti stated in his postgame press conference.

Cignetti was surprised at how well the team swarmed the ball today. It wasn’t that he didn’t think they were capable, he was shocked at how dominant and scary the front seven was against Michigan State. It’s an astonishing performance and as Mikail said, it’s definitely not the last one. The Hoosiers are hosting Michigan in Bloomington next Saturday and will continue to work as hard as they can to go 10-0 going into the bye week.