What Worked and What Didn't in Indiana's 34-32 Win Over Maryland

Peyton Ramsey eludes a tackler on the way to the end zone Image: Sammy Jacobs Hoosier Huddle

Written by Rylie Kyhn

In typical Indiana football fashion, they gave fans a scare yesterday against Maryland but in this one, they came out on top 34-32. The Hoosiers are now one win away from being bowl eligible and have two games left to get there. Looking at the win over Maryland, there are plenty of takeaways when it comes to what worked and what didn’t.

What worked?

This game proved that taking a more aggressive approach, works for Indiana. They were taking shots down the field and the play calling was less conservative than it has been in recent weeks. Ramsey averaged 15.2 yards per reception and showed that he has the ability to throw the deep ball and it works when they try to use it. He went 16-28, 243 yards and two touchdowns with one interception in the third quarter. Despite the interception, Ramsey and the offense got their job done and used the long ball to do it. He believes that the aggressiveness in the third quarter was one of the keys.

“I think it was important because it set a tone of ‘We are going to go win this thing.’ The coaches instilled their trust in us to go make a big play and we were able to do it,” said Ramsey.

The Hoosier defense walked away from that game with a total of four takeaways which means Indiana continues a sixteen straight game takeaway streak dating back to last season. The takeaways in this game were key to getting the win and they scored 17 off Maryland turnovers. The takeaways resulted in scoring drives for Indiana so this was a huge aspect of winning the game. The final takeaway, a forced fumble by graduate transfer Kayton Samuels, and a recovery by Nile Sykes, sealed the Hoosiers victory in the final few minutes of the game. Getting those takeaways are clearly a huge piece of this young defense and yesterday, we saw it get the job done.

Special teams. This was one of the better all around performances by the special teams unit this season and it was capped off with a final 42-yard field goal by Logan Justus late in the fourth quarter to give the Hoosiers the final lead.

What didn’t work?

This was a much needed win for Indiana that snapped a four game losing streak. There was plenty that went right which contributed to the win but there were some things that could have been better. There were quite a few missed tackles which led to bigger yard gain by Maryland. They had 542 total yards which is a huge number and if you were to only look at that, you would have no idea that Indiana won the game. Maryland proved what has been true all season, that they have the ability to run the ball effectively. The Indiana defense gave up 353 rushing yards and allowed them to convert on 8/15 third downs. Indiana is going to have to be able to stop the run effectively over the next two games in they want a chance at bowl eligibility.