By now, if you’re reading me, you’ve probably already read a bunch of reactions to IU’s 27-14 win over Old Dominion last Saturday at Memorial Stadium.
And…you’re going to want to read more because there were some important takeaways that I haven’t really seen mentioned elsewhere and I think are important in understanding the “how” of the ODU game.
IU had numerous opportunities to win that game by 4+ scores and they didn’t execute when they needed to, most notably in the red zone and, specifically, inside the 5 yard line. Hell, IU ran an absurd 92 offensive snaps per PFF and possessed the ball for 41:28 in a 60 minute game. IU dominated this game everywhere but the scoreboard.
As I’m sure you’ve probably read by now if you’re reading this, there are many parallels to the first game started by Kurtis Rourke for IU last season against FIU. In that one, though, IU got up 21-0 and kind of sat on the ball tying to get their running game going. I think that was almost the exact game plan the staff had here except ODU had the 75-yard run on the first snap of the game.
People might also forget that in that FIU game, IU was only up 24-10 when when Elijah Green had a 51 yard run with 1:06 to go in the game to put IU up 31-10…That game was never really in jeopardy. I didn’t think this game was every really in jeopardy either but there was that “same old IU” PTSD rushing through my head as the QB ran for a TD on ODU’s first snap.
We’ll start out talking about the offense.
Individually, I think we need to take a deep dive into Fernando Mendoza. Mendoza finished with a fairly pedestrian line of 18/31 for 193 yards (6.2 y/a) and no TD’s. He also had 6 carries for 33 yards and a TD. I really liked that he wasn’t afraid to push the ball down the field as his aDOT (average depth of target) of 12.1 was 7th best in FBS. That passing line also looks a lot different had Omar Cooper been able to haul in a wide open TD from for nearly 60 yards…That turns the above numbers into these 19/31 for 253 yards (8.2 y/a), 1 TD.
That said, it wasn’t completed and Mendoza was up pretty up and down all game. This was the first time he could be hit in 10 months and you could tell that he wasn’t really going through his progressions. That’s understandable given that Cal’s OL was very mediocre in pass blocking grade by PFF (69th overall) and giving him just 2.59 TTT (Average Time to Throw) which was 76th out of 86 qualifiers while facing pressure on 34% of his drop backs.
It’s one week vs a G5 team, but IU graded out as the *top overall pass blocking team in the country* last week and afforded Mendoza nearly .2 seconds longer to hold the ball (2.76 TTT). And, I’d argue, he had even more time than that on many of those plays. When facing pressure against ODU he was 0-5 on 7 drop backs but that accounted for just 19% of his plays.
Mendoza needs to trust his OL to block for him and get through his progressions. IU was clearly trying to work on timing throws but when the first read wasn’t there, I felt like Mendoza and IU left some plays out there. I also think think if Cooper makes that catch, we might be talking a bit different about the play of this offense. I’m very intrigued about how Mendoza, the staff and the rest of the offense learn from this game.
Outside of Mendoza, I was very encouraged by IU’s OL and running attack. They finished graded out 38th overall per PFF but that came with a mediocre 65.5 team run blocking grade. That didn’t really match my eyes as I saw some big holes and lots of displacement of defensive players until we got inside the 10 yard line.
That said, I don’t care who you’re playing, when you run 57 times for 309 yards (5.4 ypc) and 2 TD’s, you dominated the opposition. They did all that and were still extremely vanilla, rarely running anything outside the tackles and, once they got inside the 10 yard line, seemingly never checking out of designed runs into 10 man boxes. That was odd to me, but clearly the staff was attempting to prove a point, almost exactly how they did against FIU once they built a lead…That point worked on the Mendoza and Black punch ins but didn’t on the other couple failed attempts.
You can look at those issues inside the 10 as a mixed bag, and they were, but I also don’t see a Curt Cignetti coached offense not running a bit more exotic sets given what we saw with jet sweeps, screens and pitches to get his play makers the ball close to the end zone out in space moving forward.
LG Drew Evans is a cyborg. Coming off an Achilles injury in November, he was back dominating. He was only given a 64.6 run blocking grade but that also came with an insane 90.1 pass blocking grade which was 3rd among all FBS OL. I think a bunch of the “mediocre” grades for IU’s OL came on those 10 or so snaps inside ODU’s 10 as they were very good on my rewatch everywhere but the goal line. IU’s very lucky to have Evans back and I’m not sure people fully understood how brutal his loss was down the stretch last season. The OL was totally different without him.
One last nitpicky type thing: IU YCO/A (yards per carry after contact) against ODU was just 2.66 after being 2.96 last season. Kaelon Black and Lee Beebe were beast last year in this category, punishing defenders who dared to try to stop them. Beebe was one of the best in the nation at 4.11, while Black was well over 3.91. I expect this number to go up as they start running outside of the tackles. I was impressed with both backs (besides the Beebe fumble).
Side note: I still cannot believe we have Roman Hemby on our team. That guy has a different gear. He’s patient and can burst through a hole with game breaking speed at any moment. His long on Saturday was 30 yards but I think we see numerous longer than that this year. He’s also a talented receiver. He caught just one pass on Saturday but I expect more of that from both him and Beebe as we move forward. They’re too talented as pass catchers to not be used that way.
Hemby was also below his career YCO/A so it’s a bit of a concern if you’re just looking at the stats, but I also think the way IU was running almost exclusively between the tackles into a 3-3-5 defense hell bent on not giving up big plays over the top…
Speaking of big plays over the top, I thought the receiving corps had a decent day. They had just the one drop, but it was a big one (the Cooper one that should have been a TD). That said, we saw Mendoza link up with a lot of the guys who are going to be major players this season.
Mendoza found EJ Williams early and he finished with 5 catches for 45 yards. I think that was a concerted effort by the staff to get EJ back in the swing of things after playing just 7 fully healthy games over the past two years. I have high hopes for him with Mendoza.
All league WR Elijah Sarratt wasn’t targeted at all in the first half and that changed with 3 catches for 44 yards in the second half. I think it was game planned this way. Nine players caught passes and IU seemed like they wanted to get “new” guys like EJ Williams (EJ isn’t new but barely played last year), Jonathan Brady, Riley Nowakowski, Lebron Bond some real reps early in the game.
Bond also probably fell victim to the “holy hell, I’ve never seen a QB drop one in the bucket like that” on a play where he kind of gave up on a deep fade before realizing the ball was coming his way and probably should have been his first TD.
Again, I think as Mendoza settles in and starts to trust his OL more, we see him start firing the ball all over the field just like we did with Rourke after the FIU game and I think that starts this week with Kennesaw State.
Before we dive into Kennesaw, I have to talk defense. I thought the defense was outstanding. People are going to point to the two busted zone reads where Isaiah Jones, Rolijah Hardy, Hosea Wheeler and Kellan Wyatt got sucked down and didn’t account for Colton Joseph having legit Power 2 level speed at the QB position, pulling the ball and out running everyone.
Now, those two plays did happen and have to be cleaned up. You cannot have that happen in three weeks against Illinois. Luke Altmeyer isn’t the athlete Colton Joseph is, but he can absolutely run the ball and will take full advantage on read options if it’s not cleaned up.
Ok, so I said you can’t take out those two plays but walk with me here…IF you take out those two long runs, IU’s defense held ODU to 21 carries for 65 yards (3.09 ypc) and Colton Joseph to just 8 carries for 26 yards (3.25 ypc).
Add to that that Joseph was just 11/22 for 96 yards (4.4 y/a) with 3 INT’s, and I’d say that this defense had a pretty good day.
People did seem a bit concerned about the lack of pressure on Joseph and there is some truth to that. In ’24, IU averaged an insane 21.8 pressures per game. They had just 10 in this one. As a ratio, against ODU, IU had pressures on just 23% of ODU’s snaps. In ’24, IU averaged pressure on 35% of opponent snaps. I think that was largely dictated by how ODU was spreading them out and running the QB. It forced IU to not have their DL’s get up field which caused less chances for pressure and mostly reduced IU getting the Havoc plays it typically has.
But we still have to acknowledge that none of ODU’s 44 snaps came across the 50 yard line.
A couple areas of actual concern…
First, the LB’s. I thought Rolijah Hardy was great and the PFF numbers bare that out, but the two lowest graded players on defense were Jones and All American Aidan Fisher. Both were abysmal in pass coverage per PFF and my eyes. Per PFF, those two allowed 5 of 7 passes against them completed for 61 of the 99 total passing yards. IU’s defense allowed a team NFL passer rating against of just 22.2 while Jones and Fisher were 101.5 and 81.3 respectively.
I talked about this in my lead up to this season: IU’s LB’s were not good at all against the pass outside of Jailin Walker and he’s gone. This is a huge area of concern for me, especially when teams have and use TE’s correctly. IU needs to tighten this up.
Another bit of concern was that Bryson Bonds got hurt and is out for the season. Tough break for a 5th year guy and a solid depth / special teams piece that IU is going to miss.
It gets more concerning when you realize that Louis Moore, who played very well against ODU (including an INT), has his court hearing to determine his eligibility once and for all coming up in a couple weeks.
It gets far more concerning when you realize that one the most highly touted freshman IU’s had in Byron Baldwin was scratched with an injury just before the game. We still don’t know anything other than that he’s day to day.
All that to say that I wouldn’t be surprised if we see CB’s with a ton of playing experience like Amariyun Knighten or Ryland Gandy begin to get some snaps at Safety.
So, to recap, Bonds is out for the season, Baldwin has a mystery injury and Moore could be out for the season after Kennesaw too if the NCAA gets its way. IU has a runway to get some depth there and considering both Knighten and Gandy didn’t play at all against ODU, it might not be a bad idea to get them ready at both CB and S. Not something I’m dreading yet but just something that I think needs to have an eye kept on it.
All in all, there is a ton that needs to be cleaned up but after thinking about what I watched and rewatching it, I’m far less concerned than I was as the game was playing out. IU won by double digits at home against a decent G5 school who basically only scored because of two fluky plays and other than that never crossed the 50. That’s the optimists view that I tend to agree with…
IU Reactionary Prediction: 41-14
Final Score: 27-14 / ODU Covers +23.5 and the UNDER hits
IU Reactionary Betting Record: 0-2
If IU just converts two more of the near misses they had into TD’s, I win both ways. But that’s betting, I guess. Very frustrating from a betting perspective, however, but I also said on Twitter that this isn’t a game I would have been betting on as the public was all over IU and the public loves getting hammered.
Looking forward, I think IU takes their anger from ODU out on Kennesaw State.
Speaking of Kennesaw State…
IU vs Kennesaw State — 12PM ET / 11AM CT — FS1
IU Reactionary Betting Record: 0-2
IU Reactionary Prediction: IU 45-7
As I said in my look back at my bets for ODU, I think IU uses this game to get their passing game in order. They ran 57 times against ODU and threw just 31 times. Normally, 31 would be a fine number, but IU dominated the ball against ODU and I expect there to be a lot more balance for IU in this one.
I’m not going to do a real deep dive here because I think IU wins going away and if they don’t, they have much bigger problems than whatever I’m writing. ESPN’s Matchup Predictor gives IU as a 94.6% chance to win and, as of this writing, they still have the line at IU -36.5.
I will say that former IU QB Dexter Williams is the starter for Kennesaw and they’re going to try to run the ball but do use a bunch of tempo in their offense. Whether that will be effective against IU’s athletic defense remains to be seen. Williams had 14 carries and 33 pass attempts for 193 total yards as Kennesaw nearly beat a mid, at best, Wake Forest last week losing 10-9 on the road.
That result gives me a tiny bit of pause and is probably the only reason I didn’t pick IU to put up 50+.
That said, IU, their coaches and players, are going to want to get that bad taste out of their mouth on both sides of the ball. The weather should be pristine which will also help facilitate scoring.
IU didn’t cover against FIU last year and then covered eight straight games…I think they start their run of covering here.
For this week, I’m taking IU -35.5 and the OVER on 50.5.