Numbers That Mattered: No. 4 Indiana vs. Western Kentucky

Numbers drive so much in today’s world and the sports world is no different. Now more than ever teams are hiring and building analytics teams to get every edge possible over their opponents. Over the course of the season, we’ll look into many of those numbers following each of the Indiana Hoosiers’ matchups each week, so be on the lookout for that!

Without further ado, let’s get into it:

3

…Represents the number of Indiana tight ends who saw game action on Saturday against Western Kentucky. Andrew Barker led the way with 26 snaps, while Brock Schott saw 24 snaps and Trevor Gibbs saw 18 snaps. This is something we started tracking last week in our ‘Matchup To Watch’ article (linked here) as we continue to monitor the development of this extremely young (but immensely talented) tight end room. Often there will be multiple tight ends on the field at the same time and it’s likely very matchup dependent, but these snap counts still serve as a valuable guide to the tight ends’ usage and where they sit on the depth chart.

Over the first two games of the season, Barker and Schott led the way in terms of snaps and largely performed similarly. They ran a similar amount of routes, caught just one ball between the two, and had a mixed bag of blocking grades per Pro Football Focus. Now, against Western Kentucky, we see Trevor Gibbs getting some time at the tight end spot, which was encouraging and interesting to see. All three tight ends ran a similar amount of routes, had a similar amount of run blocking assignments, and earned a similar overall offensive grade on Pro Football Focus, but we saw some interesting developments when looking at run blocking grades, specifically.

Brock Schott had his best game of the season on the run blocking front with a grade of 67.0, while Barker also performed strongly in this department with a grade of 63.1. This is such a large focus in a Mike Shanahan offense and one that requires a lot of learning. For a young room like the Hoosiers have, this is likely a big point of emphasis early on in the season, and it is encouraging to see improvement here among the Hoosiers’ talented tight ends. Once the blocking becomes secure, I highly anticipate an improvement in the passing game next.

243.9

…Represents Josh Hoover’s passer rating thus far in the 2026 season, per ESPN, which ranks second in the country among all quarterbacks. Yes, I recognize he missed a few throws against Western Kentucky and I am beyond certain that Head Coach Curt Cignetti and Josh Hoover himself saw those too, are even more annoyed at them than the fans are, and are actively working hard to fix those as soon as possible. I wanted to include this statistic simply to bring patience among the fan base. Hoover is arguably the best quarterback in the country right now, is 18th in the country in completion percentage at 72.5%, and is off the charts on nearly every ‘efficiency’ chart you can come across online.

The Hoosiers are an elite offense led by an elite quarterback. Missed throws will happen all the time, but Hoover and this staff are the best bet in the entire country to get things right, continue this incredible success, and repeat as National Champions.

5.3

…Represents the number of points per game that the Indiana defense has allowed thus far in 2026, which ranks second in the country behind Iowa (4.3 points per game). Of course, all of these points occurred against North Texas in game one as the Hoosiers have had back to back shutouts since. There are a few things to monitor, certainly, like injuries to the secondary, but this is still an elite defense behind the best defensive coordinator in the country in Bryant Haines.

This Hoosier defense will be tested in the coming weeks as we enter Big Ten play, as the remaining games of the season will serve as the toughest opponents Indiana faces throughout the year (depending on how good North Texas is). The past two years of Indiana football served up truly historic defenses. I believe the Hoosiers have the talent to make it a third year in a row, but there are more challenges this season compared to the previous two. Nonetheless, Indiana is off to one of the best starts imaginable on defense and, with health improving over the next couple of weeks, they should continue to add to this historic run under Bryant Haines.

As always, thank you for reading! We’ll be back next week with more numbers and takeaways from the Hoosiers’ matchup against Northwestern this coming Friday. Go IU!