College Football Links From Across the Country (5/7/20)

Image: amanda pavelka/hoosier huddle

Daily College Football Links (May 7, 2020)

Believe it or not, we have made it eight weeks without sports. While we’re all doing our part to stop the spread of Coronavirus by staying home, we have gathered popular news stories from around the state, region and country to keep you updated on it all. If you have any links or stories you’d like to share please email them to TheHoosierHuddle@gmail.com. We have also included some favorite football reads for your off-season enjoyment.

Indiana Hoosiers

Kevin Peoples, Jovan Swann Zoom press conference transcript and video via IU Athletics

Sports Illustrated: Former Hoosier Nate Sudfeld still key piece in Eagles’ quarterback room

Big Ten Football

Penn State’s James Franklin: College Football opening plans need to be ‘national or not at all’ by conference, per CBS Sports

Indianapolis Business Journal: Big Ten Conference football season an uncertainty without open campuses

Yahoo! Sports: How does the Big Ten play football without open campuses?

College Football

Forbes: Without a vaccine, there is no way college athletes can play this fall

Top 10 best college football facilities in the country, according to Lineups

Tampa Bay Times: Two more SEC schools plan to reopen in fall, gives more hope for college football

Tracking when colleges will reopen during COVID-19 pandemic via KSL Sports

247 Sports: ESPN ranks 10 best ‘Wide Receiver U’ in college football

Staples: Why ‘I don’t know’ is an appropriate answer about college football season via The Athletic

Ranking the Top 25 coaches in college football via 247 Sports

Off-Season Reading Suggestions

The Search for Indiana Football Glory

Billion Dollar Ball

The 50 Best* College Football Teams of All Time

Study Hall: College Football, Its Stats and Its Stories

The System: The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football

College Football Links From Across the Country (3/16/20)

Image: amanda pavelka/hoosier hudDle

Daily College Football Links (March 16, 2020)

In less than a week, the Coronavirus pandemic has cancelled just about every sporting event there is until further notice. We have gathered popular news stories from around the state, region and country to keep you updated on it all. If you have any links or stories you’d like to share please email them to TheHoosierHuddle@gmail.com. We have also included some favorite football reads for your off-season enjoyment.

Indiana Hoosiers

Hoosier Huddle: Murphy primed for a comeback in Bloomington

Hoosier Huddle takes a look back at Indiana’s 1992 homecoming game against Wisconsin

Big Ten Football

Saturday Tradition: FOX Bet releases early lines for several key B1G games in 2020

Ohio State big favorites in early released betting lines, according to 247 Sports

Ohio State suffers the least in the Big Ten East if no spring football, according to Sports Illustrated

Northwestern believes it has answer to last season’s quarterback woes via Chicago Sun-Times

College Football

New CDC recommendation effectively ends any chance of spring practice for college football teams starting back up, according to NBC Sports

Five questions we don’t have answers to regarding what’s next via Rivals

247 Sports: Joe Burrow wants to put on Pro Day for his LSU teammates

Clint Buckley of 247 Sports’ analytics-driven 2020 NFL mock draft

How COVID-19 could alter CFB season in a way you might not expect, according to 247 Sports

Prothro: Upholding tradition should be college football’s first priority via Wichita Falls Times Record News

Shut down college football in the state of Alabama? It’s happened twice before, according to AL.com

Off-Season Reading Suggestions

The Search for Indiana Football Glory

Billion Dollar Ball

The 50 Best* College Football Teams of All Time

Study Hall: College Football, Its Stats and Its Stories

The System: The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football

Kevin Peoples Ready to Develop Young Hoosier Defensive Line Room

Image: ken bikoff/peeGs

Written by Amanda Pavelka (@amandapavelka3)

Monday morning, Indiana announced the addition of Kevin Peoples to the football program. Peoples’ trek from his former four-year term at Tulane to Bloomington was complete this week. He made it to experience his first Hoosier basketball game at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall on Wednesday, where he stopped to introduce himself at the press conference beforehand.

“I’m very excited to be at Indiana University,” Peoples said. “(I’m) excited to be with Coach Allen and the rest of the coaches. I’m looking forward to building on what he's already established. He's created a great environment, great culture (in this) football program and I’m very, very excited to be a part of it.”

Offensive line coach Darren Hiller was amongst the familiar faces welcoming him to Bloomington. The two worked together for eight years at Arkansas State from 2002-09. The Butte, Montana native had known Tom Allen and Kane Wommack previously as well.

Peoples brings 27 years of coaching experience to IU’s young defensive line—one that he has plans to work intensely to develop. 

“You know, we've had a lot of success at the place I've been developing guys,” Peoples said. “We’ve coached several NFL defensive linemen, and we're not at schools that we're necessarily recruiting four and five star kids.” 

Two defensive linemen were drafted under Peoples’ wing at Tulane— DE Ade Aruna to the Minnesota Vikings in 2018, and DT Tanzel Smart to the Los Angeles Rams in 2017. Peoples made waves in Tulane’s football program, helping them win back-to-back bowl games in 2018 and 2019 for the first time in program history.

“What we look for is someone who has a great ceiling, great upside and we want to build it,” he said. “Obviously we'd like to have the biggest, strongest fastest guys we could have. Defensive linemen are hard to find. If you just walk the streets of Bloomington, you're not going to see a lot of 6’3 or 6’4 guys that are 270 to 300 pounds that can run real fast. So, you know, we're going to start obviously, looking in the state of Indiana. This year's a great year, talent-wise in this state. So, we're going to start locally and then expand out.”

Having spent the last four years down South in Louisiana, with a 27-year-long list of contacts, Peoples’ connections are a valuable gateway to talent of Alabama, Georgia, Missouri, Arkansas, and the surrounding states— many of which have not been frequented by IU football in recent years.

“The hardest thing to find is guys that have pass rush ability, and those guys with the twitch and the get-off off the ball— that’s something that we're going to be to work tirelessly to find and some that we need to be successful to get pressure on a quarterback,” Peoples said.

At first glance of film, Peoples noticed potential in the young defensive linemen room, led by senior DT Jerome Johnson and senior DE Michael Ziemba.

“We think we have good depth. Jerome (Johnson), we think he is a very good player.” Peoples said.” I know he's a great kid to speak with and I know he's a talented football player. So anytime you have talent and character, that’s a great place to start. 

“Mike Ziemba is a talented kid. I've been really impressed with what they've done as far as how hard they played some young defensive linemen that I think have a real chance,” Peoples said.

Junior DE James Head is another notable, talented starter for IU’s defensive line last season, that he noticed was a “high ceiling” player at first look.

“He seems like he's very intelligent, high football IQ— he flashed it on film.” Peoples said. “Two days away from getting out there and getting effort. So I'm very, very excited about him as well.”

Veteran Hoosiers Prepare to Execute Against Ohio State Saturday

Written by Amanda Pavelka (@AmandaPavelka3)

The competition has ramped up for Indiana football quicker than usual going into week three. The Hoosiers will go from facing the lowest-ranked opponent on the 2019 season to the most difficult—the No. 6 ranked Ohio State Buckeyes.

While producing a massive 52-0 victory over Eastern Illinois last Saturday, Indiana displayed a promising offense, and improved defense—talented enough to shutout the Panthers completely. 

“Overall it was a confidence booster to go out there, clean up stuff, and produce a shutout which is very hard to do, no matter who you’re playing,” senior linebacker Reakwon Jones told the media Monday. 

Saturday’s true test is against an elite defensive line that unlike Eastern Illinois, boasts guys more than qualified for the job— seven of 11 top defensive linemen returning from 2018’s Big Ten and Rose Bowl Champion squad. 

“Going into this game, we always know they have a stout defensive line of athletic guys, big guys,” senior offensive lineman Simon Stepaniak said, “so just preparing this week at practice and taking everything seriously and making sure our craft is in tip-top shape for this game is crucial.”

In his third game as quarterback one, there’s a heavy weight placed on redshirt freshman Michael Penix’s shoulders to be the difference-maker in IU’s 26-game losing streak to the Buckeyes. Ohio State is known for their pass rushing game, and for Penix, it’s not the main focus going into Saturday’s game. 

“I trust my offensive line, believe in everything with the offense, that Coach DeBoer’s going to put us in the right situations,” Penix told the media on Monday, “I feel like that’s not something we’re worried about right now, we’re just worried about what we need to execute on the offensive side of the ball.”

Ohio State’s stacked depth won their battle last year. IU ran out of steam on both sides of the ball and fell out of the game after halftime, succumbing to the Buckeyes 49-26. 

Penix prepares for the biggest game of his college career so far with the 1-0 mentality:

“Every single day we work hard, not because of who it is, but because it’s our next game, our next opportunity to get better and show the world that Indiana is on the rise.”