Indiana’s Offense Grinds as Josh Hoover Had Toughest Day in the Cream and Crimson Win Over Michigan

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Indiana football won in Ann Arbor, Michigan for the first time since 1967. Indiana escaped its toughest three game stretch with a 2-1 record, but despite all of this, the Hoosiers are still a team the presents a lot of questions.

The first game of this stretch was the Nebraska game, where questions arose about Indiana’s run game ability, and the ability to sustain drives. The second game was Indiana’s first loss after a 22-game win streak. In this game, the same run-game questions remained, along with questions about quarterback Josh Hoover and his accuracy. Then today, there was a new first for the Curt Cignetti Indiana Football era. It was the first overtime game and win of Cignetti’s tenure. This game, was an ugly, 13-6 victory in which the offense didn’t get a touchdown through regulation. The main question coming from this game was Hoover.

Hoover had his worst game of his Indiana tenure, and arguably of his collegiate career. He had 81 yards in the air on 8-for-18 passing. He also threw his first interception of the season to Michigan corner Zeke Berry in the third quarter.

Hoover was far from perfect, but some of the blame may be on a nagging injury he’s had since the Ohio State game. Hoover took a hit last week, and sat for a play because of it. He fought and finished the game, but that hit may of affected his play this week.

“Josh Hoover practiced every day, but was limited a little bit,” Cignetti said postgame. “There was a lot of discussion, because we have Grant Wilson, and Grant’s capable”.

These conversations were during the second half of the game. In the second half, Indiana had 19 total plays of offense. Two of those plays were passes, and one of those passes was the interception. The play calling was severely limited in the second half, likely due to Hoover health.

There is one question that was solidified even further about Hoover today, and it is about his clutch plays to end games.

Against Nebraska, when IU needed him, Hoover answered. Against Ohio State, Hoover took them down the field, and delivered a catchable ball to win the game. This ball was caught out of bounds, but it could have been caught. Then today, in overtime, when Hoover got the ball back after the Hoosiers were embarrassed and all hope seemed gone, and Hoover delivered a 21 yard strike to tight end Brock Schott, and then ran it himself into the end zone for a touchdown. Hoover comes through in big moments, that is for certain. What is uncertain is his play before all of this.

It may have been the injury, but Hoover had a bad performance.

“I think it was just tough sledding for a while as far as getting things going,” Hoover said.

Hoover had a rough day. Credit certainly should be handed to Michigan’s defense, especially defensive coordinator Jay Hill, who saw Hoover last year at TCU, and forced him into a tough performance in that game as well. In that game, Hoover was under 200 yards, had less than 50 percent completion percentage, had no touchdowns and threw a pick. Hill certainly understands how to rattle Hoover, but despite this, Indiana needs to be able to sustain more drives from the offense.

Hoover just couldn’t ever get into a rhythm in this game, as Indiana failed to convert third downs and was ultimately out gained by the Wolverines. Despite this performance though, Indiana was able to make the plays that matter and fight for another win. This team seems to typically make the plays when necessary.

“We got a resilient group,” Hoover said. “We truly believe in each other. Um, you know, our offense, we believe in our defense, and they believe in us. We’re going to make the plays when we need to”.

Hoover didn’t have a good performance in this game. He was banged up all week, but still went out and fought. The staff had conversations about pulling him, but elected to stay with Hoover and he came through with the plays that the team needed. Indiana football still has so many unanswered questions, but they are 7-1, fully in control of their own destiny, and they will head back home to take on Minnesota next week.