Hoosier Defense Plagued by Same Maladies All Season

Written by Matt Smith

Indiana’s defense continued to struggle against Penn State this Saturday. With the Hoosiers having one of the more experienced secondaries and linebacking cores, the struggle have came as a bit of a shock.

The defense has a lot of areas that they need to improve in order to end the season on a good note, one of those things being tackling according to Chad Wilt.

The Hoosiers had 16 missed tackles for over 150 yards following the first tackling attempt made on the runner. There were multiple plays that had multiple missed tackles as well.

“We spent a lot of our time in our meetings this morning, and we’re going to spend a lot of time at it during practice tomorrow.” Wilt said.

Wilt also said that they can’t let the missed tackles get to them and how it affects their body language.

Indiana was able to get some of the younger guys on the field during the end of the game. Which was not ideal, but the coaches were able to give some of the younger guys a chance to play.

“It is certainly a beauty of college football now, with the new four game red shirt rule,” Wilt said. “The speed of the game, the physical speed of the game, but also the mental speed of the game, so for those guys to go out and execute in the game…it's just good for those guys.”

It was a positive way for guys to learn some of the little things, and have it mean something for the younger guys as well. Wilt said it was sort of an award for the younger guys on Saturday.

The Hoosiers were in position to make some tackles for loss, but weren’t able to complete some of the plays.

“It always begins with us as coaches, I’m not going to sit up here and say one guy’s name, that’s not what we’re going to do,” Wilt said. “It begins with us as coaches and identifying how we’re teaching it, what we’re teaching it.”

Indiana was not up to their standard on the defensive side of the ball in terms of execution when it comes to tackling and completing plays.

The Hoosiers now move onto Ohio State, with a trip to Columbus on Saturday. However, Wilt believes the noise on the defensive side of the ball will not be much of an issue.

Wilt said that the offense of Ohio State is very deep and have extreme talent at every position on the offensive side of the ball.

In order to combat the talent of Ohio State, the defense needs to focus on them and their execution of the scheme and gameplan.

With the defense being on the field for a long time, Wilt said they have to go and get off of the field. They need to force their own three and outs. 

The Hoosiers will look to pull off the unthinkable this weekend against Ohio State this weekend and pull out a massive upset win.