This may seem like a weird comment but can someone explain why everyone is so high on Oregon. Wins against, Montana state, Oklahoma state, Northwestern (34-14), Oregon state, and Penn State (who looked bad all year and finally lost vs UCLA) isn’t like their schedule has been tough. 9th in the country in total offense (IU 5th) total defense 7th (IU 5th). I feel like it should be a 3 point spread (for home field advantage only) feels much more like a toss up to me.
They are really good up front on both sides of the ball. Dontae Moore is really good at QB and they have excellent athleticism at the skill positions.
They are much more talented than IU, Autzen is an almost impossible place to win for a visiting team, and Cignetti goes into turtle mode in tough venues.
Look forward to seeing how IU responds to that kind of pressure. I would hope they play to the best of their ability.
@zekeus this will be a great yardstick as to the progress of our team, both physically and mentally. I'm personally not looking for a win nearly as much as how long we are competitive. Can we beat the spread?? Can we come out healthy! Can we protect Mendoza?? Can we run the football in obvious running situations?? If so take that experience to Happy Valley and beat a wounded Penn State. That's my hope.
BEAT PURDUE
This may seem like a weird comment but can someone explain why everyone is so high on Oregon. Wins against, Montana state, Oklahoma state, Northwestern (34-14), Oregon state, and Penn State (who looked bad all year and finally lost vs UCLA) isn’t like their schedule has been tough. 9th in the country in total offense (IU 5th) total defense 7th (IU 5th). I feel like it should be a 3 point spread (for home field advantage only) feels much more like a toss up to me.
SPEED!!!
@zekeus this will be a great yardstick as to the progress of our team, both physically and mentally. I'm personally not looking for a win nearly as much as how long we are competitive. Can we beat the spread?? Can we come out healthy! Can we protect Mendoza?? Can we run the football in obvious running situations?? If so take that experience to Happy Valley and beat a wounded Penn State. That's my hope.
No offense but IMO, you (and many others) are drinking the national pundit kool-aid. This Oregon team is not last year's Oregon team. Yes, like lots of teams, they have talent, yet they haven't offered as much in their results this season as IU has....... against lesser competition, at that.
Going on the road is always going to be hard so in that sense, I understand this game is likely to be a contested one. But I am still of the mind we have more a of a chance to win this one, than lose it. If the game was at home, I would have no qualms putting us at a TD favorite.
Oregon 100% does not have as good of a defense as Iowa, let alone Indiana, who is better than both. That's simply undeniable. The debate to me comes down to, is Oregon's offense better than IU? If it is better than IU, is it better by as much as the IU defense is above Oregon's D? With D'Angelo Ponds playing, I don't think it is.
Someone said their O-line is the biggest in the Big Ten? I don't know if that's true or not. I know they have a bunch of talent all over the field. Agree with the speed comment.
I'm looking for a win. I think we have to punch a bit above our weight, but if we do and they don't, Hoosiers win! They have good coaching too though. And sure haven't lost much in recent years.
I did an AI search and #1 and #2 ranked teams have only lost at home four times since 2010. AI can be wrong, but I’m not going to audit it.
These games are extremely difficult. Personally I just want to see us hang with them.
@yothn None of this matters much if Cig and staff can't get the line and Mendoza on the same page with an effective silent count. Giving a team like Oregon, with the speed they have, any sort of jump or head start... we won't have a chance to win this game. We'll see similar ineffectiveness in short yardage situations, Mendoza will get hit, we'll turn the ball over.
I do think neutral field, or in Bloomington, Indiana might be as good as any team in the country. But this game is about as far from those situations as a game could possibly get.
So, IF... IU can vary up the snap effectively, I agree with you. It should be a very good game, and IU might be better enough to overcome the energy and crowd. But man, its hard to get the OSU, ND, and even Iowa performances out of my head. Gonna have to see it.
But man, its hard to get the OSU, ND, and even Iowa performances out of my head. Gonna have to see it.
No team in the top-10 is mostly 3*’s like us. Cig and staff get 125% from our roster, but we are an outlier. I worry there is a limit on what kind of size/speed we can compete with — fundamentally football is a kinetic game to some extent.
Or, it may be as simple as playing #1 or #2 teams on the road is flat out hard and most teams get blown out.
Regardless, I know we can be better than we’ve been. Fingers crossed we play well and we don’t hear anything about issues with the friggin’ silent count.
@yothn None of this matters much if Cig and staff can't get the line and Mendoza on the same page with an effective silent count. Giving a team like Oregon, with the speed they have, any sort of jump or head start... we won't have a chance to win this game. We'll see similar ineffectiveness in short yardage situations, Mendoza will get hit, we'll turn the ball over.
I do think neutral field, or in Bloomington, Indiana might be as good as any team in the country. But this game is about as far from those situations as a game could possibly get.
So, IF... IU can vary up the snap effectively, I agree with you. It should be a very good game, and IU might be better enough to overcome the energy and crowd. But man, its hard to get the OSU, ND, and even Iowa performances out of my head. Gonna have to see it.
Against a really good defense, I agree with your logic. Oregon D hasn't yet proven to be at that level vs. very mild schedule. If Oregon is preparing for IU to be equal to what we all thought was a good Penn State team, they may find out we are much better than that.
I did an AI search and #1 and #2 ranked teams have only lost at home four times since 2010. AI can be wrong, but I’m not going to audit it.
These games are extremely difficult. Personally I just want to see us hang with them.
I'm not following the logic, since Oregon is #3.
We SHOULD be able to run the ball against Oregon. If we can do that, we have a legit shot at beating them.
It would also help if they’d turn it over seven times like they did back in 2004. 😂
Latest Post: 2027 HS Recruiting News Our newest member: Redd Collects Recent Posts Unread Posts
