Young DB’s Bringing the Juice for Indiana
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True freshman A'shon Riggins picks off a pass at Ohio State last Saturday.
Written By Alex Compton
Some have credited the hiring of Tom Allen. Some have credited a new attitude. Some have credited the recruiting. Give the credit to whom or whatever you’d like, but the fact that remains is that this Indiana team has a solid defense. A very solid defense, in fact. The turnaround is probably a combination of those three aforementioned factors, but the unit that is leading the so-called defensive turnaround?
The defensive backs.
The linebackers have been the most impressive group on defense so far this season, but that was identified as a strength by people in and around the program during the offseason. Tegray Scales and Marcus Oliver have been playing the best ball of their careers so far, but it wasn’t unreasonable to expect that out of them this year. What really held the unit back in the past few seasons was the defensive backs. Big plays, missed tackles, penalties, you name it. The DB’s were just not playing well enough to usher in a new defensive culture, no matter what kinds of talent was on the field around them.
We are in the midst of a turnaround however, and it is quite impressive. Just how impressive has the turnaround been this season? Let’s turn to advanced stats to give us a better look.
In 2015, Indiana had the 105th best defense. The passing and rushing defenses ranked 89th, and 109th respectively. They ranked 101st on passing downs (second down with 8 or more yards to go, and third down with 5 or more yards to go), and 112th in an explosiveness metric. So essentially, the 2015 defense couldn’t stop the pass when they were expecting a pass, and gave up big plays more than 111 other teams. In short, the defensive backs were atrocious. Rashard Fant had a really nice sophomore season, but injuries and inexperience left the other side of the field extremely vulnerable through the air. Just when we seemed to get the offense rolling, the DB’s made it way too easy on opposing offenses to score.
Fast forward to this season, and the stats tell us a completely different story. So far, Indiana has the 35th best defense, checking in ahead of Nebraska, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and others. The passing defense is ranked at #46, which is 43 spots ahead of where IU was just a year ago. Additionally, they rank 39th on passing downs instead of 101st, and rank 55th in the same explosiveness metric that saw us end the year at 112th in 2015. This defense has made a huge jump behind the improvement of the defensive backs, and therefore the passing defense. The consistency of Rashard Fant and the emergence of true freshman A’Shon Riggins have had a huge impact on the drastic turnaround. HoosierHuddle.com caught up with them both after the 38-17 loss to Ohio State.
Rashard Fant on the tough loss:
“This was one of the best quarterbacks in the nation. We did a good job, and this was a good test for us against one of the nation’s best receiving groups play in and play out.”
“We don’t take any moral victories. We’re going to get ready for a good Nebraska team coming in, and we’ll be able to show the whole nation what we can do.”
After brief comments on OSU, Fant was asked about A’Shon Riggins’ performance:
“He played great. He had the pass breakup to open the game, and then almost had a pick six at the end. I’m not surprised though. I’ve seen him since the first day he walked on campus, and I knew he would be ready today, especially in his home state. He’s just going to keep getting better and better.”
After Fant left the area, all eyes were on the true freshman coming off of his first career start in his home state in front of 100,000 strong.
Riggins On his pick:
“The great players take that to the end zone. I’m still working on becoming great and getting better for my team.”
On starting:
“When I found out I was with the 1’s, I had to strap up and get ready to roll. It was an honor to be a part of the 1’s this week.”
“There wasn’t a lot of pressure because I know my coach wouldn’t put me out there if he didn’t believe in me.”
On Tom Allen:
“He brings the juice every second of every day. You can’t let a coach like that down. With him bringing the juice everyday, we have to bring the juice everyday.”
To the delight of everyone, this is a much-improved passing defense. It took a while, but advanced stats are showing us that there is indeed a culture shift happening. After reading this, you may want to credit the play of Rashard Fant and A’Shon Riggins. That is fine by me, but I’m going to start crediting the “juice” that this defense can’t seem to get enough of.