The quest to repeat begins in a couple sleeps.
Big one on Saturday, because it's the next one. What are you all watching for on Saturday? Here's three things I'm looking at:
- TE Rotation
I think it will be tough to gauge much from how the RB and WR split snaps on Saturday, but do think we'll learn a lot about how they view the very young and inexperienced TE room. Does Schott start and play a majority of the snaps or will they give guys a series each to ride the hot hand?
- Hoover
Easy one, but very interested to see how comfortable Josh Hoover looks against NT. We've seen Rourke and Mendoza struggle slightly in week one the past two years, so here's to hoping Hoover looks comfortable in a system that he should play very well in.
- LB3
Behind two preseason All-Americans in Jones and Hardy, who plays that LB3 role in running situations and what does the backup rotation look like? We saw Turner and Utzinger play in situational downs last season, but IU is apparently very high on True Frosh Jacob Savage.
What are you watching for?
Have we successfully replaced Ponds and Moore in the secondary?
Is Lynch the answer at Center?
Can our TE’s block for the Run game successfully?
I agree with both posts. Tight End, Corner. Center.
Center/O-line I expect to be a strength, curious about some of our depth on the line. Two good centers in a row, with Coogan surprising me last year with being an upgrade over Katic who also played very well for us.
How will our LBs look minus Aiden. I know they're talented and have already made a ton of big plays. Secondary, replace Ponds by committee. Everybody needs to be better, can't just put one guy over there and know it's locked down.
I'm excited about our offensive potential, curious how we use these weapons. A bunch of weapons.
I'm mainly interested in the secondary and how they play. I expect the offense to be somewhat vanilla early. Like normal for the early games I want to see a clean game, limited mistakes and just how well they execute on the basics.
Yes, I want to see if A J Harris is as good as I hope he will be. He showed some chops last year against us but apparently was inconsistent. Gandy will be OK but I think Harris could be the man.
also, TE like others have said.
I’m interested to see how the carries are split amongst the running backs and who that third receiver is.
Looking for the shutout and because I predicted 8 Defensive/ST TDs this season, I need to see these Hoosiers get one this game.
I hope BTN or Big noon crew breaks away from their talking slapdix and shows the pregame stuff.
I’m looking to see if IU can buck the trend of slow starts.
I don’t get the questions on center. I know the HT and Indy Star keep asking who is starting at center, but it was very clearly Lynch and has been for over a year.
The battle at CB2 is interesting and how they use the tight ends.
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I didn't see OP asking what we are questioning, just what we want to see. I thought Cig did Cig stuff in the spring on center to media and said probably. He usually feels compelled to remind guys they earn it, not given. Maybe I remember wrong. But yeah, I remember here you guys saying it would be Lynch, for a long time.
My only question on center is, will he be great? Or just pretty good. I'm looking forward to seeing it.
I know the HT and Indy Star keep asking who is starting at center, but it was very clearly Lynch and has been for over a year.
I know they say it's Bostad's MO to juggle guys at different positions, but I am pretty sure there was talk from the staff after the season that they'd try both Evans and Lynch at center and go with whoever gave them the best line.
My hope with the slow starts is that as the roster gets more experience with Cig and the staff's expectations, this will somewhat fix itself. I think this will be a fairly easy win. I just don't see a roster with an entirely new staff and 70 new players jelling enough to challenge IU. Maybe another early breakdown like last year or we make a mistake or 2 early, but I'd guess we'll be up comfortably by halftime. Looking forward to what happens at the CB2 spot and TE and how they rotate the DEs. Hate that Gibbs is out, as I thought he might have the opportunity to be this year's Nowakowski at TE.
Eye test, mistakes, new player integration. line play. Go Hoosiers!
Ditto re the secondary.
NT obviously isn't an elite team but this is a good test against a quality QB.
I'll bet the memory of the 1st half of ODU has woke up Cignetti more than once over this offseason. He'll have made adjustments to this weeks prep to lower the hiccup episodes.
100% probability that 95% of the social media fanbase will overreact, no matter the result.