Numbers that Matter: Western Illinois Leathernecks

Written by: Nate Comp (@NathanComp1)

Last week we were just getting started taking a deep dive into the numbers for this year’s college football season and because of that our numbers that mattered were much more historically based. But now, with a week of stats under our belts, we now have some data to analyze – though, a small sample size, of course. Let’s take a look at some of the statistics from may come into play in this week’s matchup against Western Illinois.

20

We felt good about the starting linebacker pair, Aiden Fisher and Jailin Walker, before the season, but after Saturday we can feel even better. The combo racked up 20 total tackles, with Fisher adding two tackles for loss and one sack. Walker flashed his dominance as well, totaling eight tackles and zero missed tackles.

“Fisher has been amazing,” said defensive lineman Marcus Burris during player availability yesterday. “He is a quiet guy off the field, so it's kind of weird when we get on the field. He's communicating and not missing the steps. It's really easy out there playing with him and I am glad he came and joined us here at IU.”

30.6

The secondary behind Fisher and Walker shone as well on Saturday, arguably the best performance coming from Amare Ferrell. Ferrell played 57 total snaps against FIU, allowing only 9 yards in coverage and also tacking on Indiana’s first takeaway of the year with an interception. When targeted, Ferrell forced a 30.6 passer rating. Jamier Johnson had similar success in pass coverage, allowing just 11 yards on six targets and tallying two pass breakups.

<3.0%, but 37.5%

Saturday was the first time we saw Kurtis Rourke behind center for the Hoosiers and he seemed to be as advertised. Rourke was known for his ability to protect possessions and he did that on Saturday, finishing the game with a less than 3% turnover-worthy play rate. This kind of play is exactly what we expected from him and a big reason why he won the job over Tayven Jackson – Cignetti has brought up that Jackson has a bit of a tendency to make the heroic, but turnover-prone, play.

The issue with this safe play from Rourke (I reiterate, one game sample size in an overly-vanilla second half of play calling while playing with a lead) was the lack of a downfield attack; Indiana was just 3-of-8 (37.5%) on passes of 15-yards or more. After three straight drives in the middle of the game gave the Hoosiers a comfortable lead, we saw a bit of a downshift in offensive intensity that included a lack of the vertical passing game. Indiana will need this threat as the competition begins to ramp up.

“It was a good learning tape to watch,” said Rourke. “I think for our first game, we were not too bad as an offense. We are trying to chase those middle three drives where we went down and scored every time and were firing on all cylinders.

The first game is always about getting that game speed back. You can prepare as much as you want in the offseason and do as many live reps as you can, but until you're in the game and you take that first hit, then you know you're going now. Getting that rhythm down and game timing down. It is good to have a couple games before conference play in order to get that out of the way, but the sooner the better and that's what we are striving for this week.”

11.3

Along with the vertical passing game on offense, the other thing Indiana will be looking to clean up on Friday night is their success on early downs. 11.3 was the average third down distance this past weekend and something Cignetti is looking to significantly improve on.

“Offensively, penalties obviously, too many on offense,” said Cignetti on Monday. “Got to cut those out. I think we had seven second and 11 pluses and six third and 11 pluses, some were 17, 21. Things we can teach off tape obviously, all correctible.”

As he mentions, penalties were a big cause of this; Indiana had 9 penalties costing them 80 yards, 114th in the FBS through one week.

4

With Indiana’s four total sacks in week one, the Hoosiers currently rank 20th in the FBS in sacks per game. Pressure on the quarterback was something we had been hoping would improve all offseason; Indiana only totaled 20 all of last season, so they are already 20% to last year’s output through just one game.

706

Unless there is vast improvement from the Leathernecks defense in one week’s time, Indiana’s offense should have a field day against WIU on Friday. In their first game, WIU faced off against the MAC’s Northern Illinois and allowed 706 yards of total offense, good for third best in all of the FBS behind just Mississippi and Tennessee through one week.

“Looking to make a big jump from an execution standpoint here in week two,” said WIU head coach Joe Davis. “I was a little surprised at the lack of defensive execution Saturday. From what I had seen in fall camp I think we’ll just need a little more tenacity from our defense. The ability to limit explosive plays is going to be a massive emphasis for us.”

If things go to plan, this game should be well in hand and Indiana’s backups should get some good experience before heading to UCLA next week.