These are the snap counts at center and the right side of the line per HUDLIQ this year. There are a couple ways IU can go to replace Brunner. They can put Liebfred at guard and just make a 1 for 1 swap. Or they can put Liebfred at center and move Lynch back to RG where he played better last year or you can slide Ajani in to guard (he worked there in fall camp) and play Wilkin at tackle. Or put true freshman Sam Simpon at guard.

I’d personally expect Liebrfried to come in at Center and move Bray back to Guard.   Although moving Ajani to Guard is interesting, I just can’t imagine that if he’s our best RT that inserting someone else there is going to yield positive results. 

@tmft I agree with you. Obvously I run a website and don't actually coach an OL, but that move to me makes sense as long as Leibfried can snap consistenly

@thehoosierhuddle Nothing known about the nature of Brunner’s injury yet?

Well...

Shit!

@jj_mcclure 

https://twitter.com/mzenitz/status/2121045553077531105?a=Rf-IagrIv4rF7-AgYeE&s=20

This is all we got.

Man, we were supposed to use bye week to heal. Seems we’ve got as many players out as we’ve had all year. 

Not good.  Hope its not a serious injury, first and foremost... but damn, awful timing team impact wise.

I find it interesting this injury doesn't move the line at all.  I guess that's good.

I like Joe, I really do but I don't think this is as big of a deal as we might think.  We have to remember Austin Leibfried was part of Cigs first class at IU.  He is 6-6 303lbs with basically 3 years of training under Bob Bostad. He played in 4 games in year one, 9 games last year and all of the games this year. I mean he has technically started 2 games this year when we had heavy packages in to begin games.  

My point is he's appeared in at least 22 games in his career.  He's also our first OL off the bench. I imagine Bob and Cig were good with that going into the year based on the lack of additional OL vets added to the roster.  If we had 3 OL down, then we have room to worry but right now, I think we are in a great spot still.   Next man up!!

Posted by: @yothn

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I like Joe, I really do but I don't think this is as big of a deal as we might think.  We have to remember Austin Leibfried was part of Cigs first class at IU.  He is 6-6 303lbs with basically 3 years of training under Bob Bostad. He played in 4 games in year one, 9 games last year and all of the games this year. I mean he has technically started 2 games this year when we had heavy packages in to begin games.  

 

My point is he's appeared in at least 22 games in his career.  He's also our first OL off the bench. I imagine Bob and Cig were good with that going into the year based on the lack of additional OL vets added to the roster.  If we had 3 OL down, then we have room to worry but right now, I think we are in a great spot still.   Next man up!!

I like your optimism but a last-minute reshuffling of a team's offensive line, particularly when the offense has been struggling and the featured back is out, is a troubling development.  Maybe a star is born tomorrow on the OL.  Fingers crossed. 

@big-ryan Inside pressure is what kills Cig/Shanahan offenses.  On its face, this increases the chances of that happening tomorrow.  As we sit here right now, it sucks, no other way to look at it.  Obviously its possible this forces IU to adjust strategy, and that could end up helping.  And obviously its possible the replacement does great. And its not like the interior of our OLine has been dominating this season.  So we were searching for some answers there anyways, maybe this forces us in a different direction in that search, than we were going to take?  Lots of maybes... but for what we know... Brunner is one of the better interior lineman in the B10, not having him in such a huge game sucks.

Isn't Brunners PFF Rating is 5th on the team.  Liebfriends is 6th.  Let's ease up a little, shall we?

https://hoosierhuddle.com/2026/11/13/how-indiana-could-reshuffle-the-line-with-joe-brunner-out