Inside the Numbers: Indiana Hoosiers vs. Rutgers Scarlet Knights

By David Sugarman (@David_Sugarman2)

In their first of potentially three do-or-die scenarios Indiana did what they needed to do to get by Illinois on Saturday. Now for phase two they play their last home game of the year against Rutgers. Often thought of as the punch line of the conference, Rutgers has made tremendous strides this season and Indiana is in no position to overlook anybody. It’s time for our weekly dive into the stats for Inside the Numbers.

3 - Since joining the Big Ten Rutgers has been considered the easiest of all the cupcakes. They were told they were there for nothing more than the east coast dollars and hadn’t done much to separate themselves from that notion especially last year when they went 0-9 in the conference and lost by nearly 80 to Michigan at home. They’ve had a speedy turn around though in year two under Chris Ash already piling up three Big Ten wins. All games Indiana needs to or was hoping to win, Rutgers has taken down Illinois, Purdue and Maryland. People shouldn’t be quick to scoff at the Scarlet Knights who have gone from bottom feeder to having legitimate bowl aspirations in just one season.

20+ - When Rutgers has picked up wins they’ve normally been low scoring grind them out type of ball games. Rutgers is 2-5 this season when they give up more than 20 points. The Indiana offense picked it up some versus Illinois after being stagnant the majority of the Wisconsin game. IU doesn’t need to put a ton of points, but if they can get up over 20 and even close to 30 the Scarlet Knights will struggle to keep up. All things considered 20 points isn’t a tall task, IU put up 24 against Illinois and that was with a plethora of punts and a dangerously slow start. Rutgers defense is only slightly better than Illinois surrendering about 385 yards per game, 10th in the Big Ten.

50/50 (kind of) - For the first time in a long time Indiana was able to be productive running the football as they went for 139 yards on 42 rushing attempts last week. They had Richard Lagow throw the ball 48 times, a much more balanced attack than we’ve come accustomed to with this IU team. Rutgers has struggled defensively in both the pass and the run and now IU can hopefully exploit both of those weaknesses and continue to be a two-dimensional offense. If they can keep Rutgers guessing there should be several trips to the end zone both through the air and on the ground.

Minus 8 - It’s still an ugly statistic and the worst in the Big Ten, but Indiana actually took a big step forward in the turnover margin department on Saturday. IU forced three turnovers, all in the fourth quarter, the most they’ve done against a Big Ten team all year. The only other time they forced that many turnovers was against Georgia Southern. Yes it should be taken with a grain of salt because it was against Illinois, but IU got their best players in Tegray Scales and Rashard Fant to both make crucial plays for interceptions in the fourth quarter to help put the game away. The Scarlet Knights offense is already lackluster, the only team worse is Illinois, if IU can turn them over a few times and capitalize it’ll be difficult for an offense like that to recover.

8 - Indiana has done a good job in the sack department this season and erupted for a season-high eight against the Illini. Although the other side of the coin is that Rutgers has given up the fewest sacks in the Big Ten despite shuffling multiple QBs in and out of the pocket. Rutgers offense struggles even when they protect their quarterbacks, if IU can find a chink in the o-lines armor and infiltrate the backfield, Rutgers will have even more trouble than usual getting on the scoreboard.