Anxious to see which direction this one moves. 

Posted by: @tammany

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We open up +10.5, O/U 50.5.

I thought it might be closer to +13, but it’s less than that.

Sounds about right to me.  I see it being similar to last year's OSU game.  Keep it close for a half until their talent advantage becomes too much.  They win by 10.

@dbmhoosier no way. People forget, all was well before the special teams disaster. The talent gap is even closer with this team vs Oregon.  I expect a one pocession game in 2 weeks. Cig has two weeks. 

Well a loss by 10 if the talent gap proves to be to much is a pretty good loss, on the road. Means its a real ball game.

Be better to win. We should have a chance. Hoping we sat Ponds figuring he wasnt really needed at Iowa ( oops ) and he only has minor dings.

Need ponds to grab one at Oregon.

Cig is still building up our depth though. Sometimes I wonder if he is hiding the younger guys, lol,  so they dont get poached or the roster doesnt break the NIL budget. We got some guys who have looked good, but in the bigger games dont get snaps. Seems like wed try to spell guys a little more.

wish we were playing PSU in 2 weeks. I think we have a shot to upset 1 of them, and sounds like their offense/QB are in a bit of a mess right now, so I wish we were playing them first and not giving them a chance to right the ship. 

I thought the lines of both PSU and Oregon looked a step up athletically vs our guys, even though I think we made pretty significant progress with the offensive line this year. Oregon seems like a very well-rounded team and I think we'll have more trouble with them than we will with PSU, especially if they've not got their offensive issues addressed. Here's hoping their offense is still offensive when we play them!

If I hadn't seen some pure whiffs by a couple of our guys against Iowa, I'd feel better about our O-line. They're still good though!

Yeah, the pad popping between the lines of Oregon and Penn State, both ways, showed some (expensive) talent and depth.

But our guys have played against that level and hung tough. So while slightly outmanned, maybe at some spots, it's not by much.

Mendoza and the receiving corps are going to need a really big day. Really strong. And they could do that. As well as the running attack. 

We actually handled the physicality and athleticism versus OSU and ND pretty well, I thought.  Both of those games had specific big plays that got us battling from behind...but we didn't get "pushed around" like IU teams of the past would against those teams.

I think the main concern is how the staff and players progress in handling the electric road atmosphere, and crowd noise.

I think the rest of the college FB world was so ready to confirm their own biases against IU, that they failed to see how well our defensive line played in both those games last year.  And they never circled back to give IU credit for battling OSU and ND as good or better than many of the other CFP teams did.

I think IU is very close to the top of the conference, and then the nation.  And I think they'd beat literally any team in the country in a big game, at home, right now.  But for whatever reason, they seem to have a deeper fall off in these games on the road, than some of the other top level B10 and national teams do.  

@openwheel 

Khobie Martin for one 

I'm glad we have Oregon next and not Penn st.  Going there after a loss don't think they lose 2 in a row at home.  Oregon wins on the road ... and perhaps they just take us a little for granted coming off the high of that win.  We might catch them ... 

@iunorth I don't know. I've not gone back and watched, but my recollection of OSU was that after the first quarter, they made some changes and started getting a lot of penetration on our O line and were harassing Rourke greatly from then on. I definitely think we made a lot of strides to address the O line especially in the off season and kind of chuckle when people say IU's "running it back" think we have 3 new starters since the end of last year. 

I just hope we don't get blown out vs Oregon. I think their talent level is on par with what we saw vs OSU and ND, and was worse vs OSU. Didn't love our approach vs Iowa yesterday and was hoping to see more short passes like slants and using the TE and RB out of the backfield. If there is one thing I don't think Mendoza is as good as Rourke was, it's at getting through his progressions and finding the best receiving option. Thought Rourke was terrific at that last year. 

@kkott The keys to both those games was definitely OSU and ND's defensive fronts getting regular pressure and disrupting our rhythm.  I think how we handled the noise levels was an equal contributor, though, to the talent gap.  Can't completely discount the talent gap...Michigan gave us fits in the 2nd half in Bloomington.  So there were some foundational issues at play, against elite Defensive fronts.  But Washington, Nebraska, even MSU, all had pretty darn good defensive front 7s, and we dominated all those teams physically up front.

I think there's something broken with how our line and QB communicate with each other, pre snap.  And that gets amplified, big time, in those electric road environments.  

Posted by: @hoosiers94

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@openwheel 

 

Khobie Martin for one 

while Khobie has looked good in limited action when games were in hand we don’t yet know if he is ready for minutes during crunch time. How’s his pass blocking? How often is he fumbling the ball in practice? Consistently going the right way. Etc. I believe the coaches are putting the best players on the field. I have a hard time believing they would hold anyone back they feel is ready to play. With that said I do think Khobie will be good and will probably earn more minutes as the season progresses and he earns more reps in practice.

Last year it seems the team made its biggest jump after the bye week. Hopefully they do the same again this year. My only concern is conservative play calling on offense and obvious struggles to adequately handle road noise with our snap cadence. If we can fix those issues I think we have a chance at the upset. I think we need to score 30+points to win. 

@olympian97 hate to bring it up but really wish Beebe wouldn’t have went down.  He was fast becoming our #1 option out of the backfield.  Hemby is very good and maybe our best receiving back, but those two together were hard to stop.

@kkott 

I agree but I do see Mendoza improving on that. Iowa wasn't a pretty game. I think the play calling and the pressure negated that a little.  I do recall OSU figuring out our snap count.  Maybe im wrong