Resources: My charting, IU game notes, IU roster, CFBstats, Last year

Last year the Hoosiers lost Michael Penix early and got used to the light touch of Peyton Ramsey. This year you can tell. Penix is throwing 100 mph darts, and a couple of times his receivers flat-out dropped them because they couldn't believe a ball could travel so fast. Especially from that arm angle. Once they adjusted, hooooo boy there were some tight windows. Penix is a thrill. Not just for sophomoric beat writers either.

The film: I'm not doing more Rutgers nope nope nope plus IU-Penn State was fuuuuuuun.

Personnel:

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Reminder that the solid colors mean the guy's the solid #1 starter, and bolded names are veterans. Most of these guys are the same as last year. You remember Mike Hart but Big RB #8 Stevie Scott III, and speedy little slot #1 Whop Philyor, by reputation if not sight, because he's had a habit of being unavailable when they play Michigan. Scott's backup RB #6 Sampson James is the only 4-star playing, and isn't too different from Scott.

"The wide receivers fortunately did not look like the world-beaters IU always seems to turn up," would be my famous last words if I was dumb enough to say such a thing. Without taking anything away from secret five-star factory Michigan State, Indiana's WR room was at least considered an upgrade on East Lansing's, and looked like it against common opponent Rutgers. PSU got handsy, especially against Whop, but even with the flurry of "refs-2"s that IU suffered in my charting, longtime up-and-comer WR #3 Ty Fryfogle was responsible for as much bad as good in the passing game, and is not a blocker. He was a very effective receiver last year, matching Ronnie Bell's YPT (10.6) and Fryfogle's 72% catch rate bettered Ronnie's by 11 points, albeit on a much lower target rate. The other three guys, tall WR #13 Miles Marshall, fast-ish WR #2 Jacolby Hewitt, and playmaking freshman #18 Javon Swinton are all at least 6'2" and rotated evenly. None were getting much separation from PSU's corners, neither of whom gave up 200 yards to an MSU freshman recently.

[After THE JUMP: the players and analysis.]

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They also go through a trio of tight ends. The receiving option is veteran TE #86 Peyton Hendershot (+2/-1 run blocking), who at 250 is plausible as a blocker but flexes out as a receiver as often as not. I actually preferred the junior TE #89 Matt Bjorson (+4.5/-1, –1 pass pro) who kept getting under guys trying to blow up his kickouts. True freshman TE #88 AJ Barner (+1.5/-4) is still not quite wintered.

Since Penix is a left-handed passer, the right tackle is the blindside. That is contextually significant in grading RT #76 Matt Bedford, a clearly talented true sophomore who was alright (+2.5/-3) as a run blocker but –5 in pass pro. Bedford was good enough as a true freshman last year that longtime starter Coy Cronk left for Iowa, but Bedford struggled in protection against PSU, if not to the degree of his mirror. The sad unfortunate tasked with containing All-American candidate Shaka Toney went to LT Caleb Jones (+4/-4, –11 pass pro). Jones is a huge ("362"), boxy slab of beef who's got some agility that appears in the run game, but not enough to keep up with Toney, who had Jones's number all game.

IU moved their one interior returning starter to center. C #57 Harry Crider (+6/-5.5, –0 pass pro) can play, but he wasn't quite comfortable making line calls against PSU's weird-ass blitzes, which often overloaded the (offense's) right side as help went to dealing with Toney. RG #51 Mackenzie Nworah (+1.5/-1, –3 prot) and the LG rotation of #56 Mike Katic (+1.5/-2, –2 prot) and #72 Dylan Powell (+0/-3, –1 prot) all got pushed around by PSU's DTs. Katic is a redshirt freshman who feels a year away from being a solid Big Ten player; Powell is a Stanford grad transfer who missed last season with an injury. That Nworah, who's also been constantly battling injuries over his career, seems to have his position locked down over the two unseen options was a floor scenario for IU fans going into the season.

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Spread, Pro-Style, or Hybrid? Despite the new coordinator (yes THAT Nick Sheridan), they're still a team that spreads three or four wide from 11 personnel, with two tight ends on the field for a little more than a quarter of their standard down snaps. On passing downs it's 50/50 whether the tight end will be split out as a slot receiver, and they'll put Scott out wide for an empty look on the regular.

The difference this year is it's become highly predictable. They run or run an RPO that's just a backside bubble screen on over half of their 1st downs. They also run the same runs to the same side—I charted nine Belly runs, and Penn State was running specific blitzes by the end to defeat those. As Brian mentioned on WTKA this morning, you can tell Sheridan's a guy who played for Lloyd Carr.

Basketball on Grass or MANBALL? The IU staple of Outside Zone often got one of these guys planted in the backfield, at which point Scott would pivot off a tackle and see what he could get. They ran a lot of Belly at Toney, a Winovich type, off the back of Jones. They also threw a lot of fades and stop routes. Mesh came back late, though against PSU's two-high zone that mostly turned into unproductive swing passes to Scott.

Hurry it up or grind it out? IU will mostly grind it out but they're modern enough to be lined up at 29 seconds, look to the sideline, then adjust. I never saw them snap on a tempo in this game.

Quarterback Dilithium Level (Scale: 1 [Navarre] to 10 [Denard]): Penix is Joe Milton, a "pro-style" passer who doesn't run often but absolutely can, and has the hugeness to add a yard or three after contact. This was one of just two clips I could get of him on his feet, both on two-point after attempts.

I take it you've seen the other:

That's a 7/10, which is dangerous but not well-used. He did miss a couple of keep opportunities on those belly runs, but PSU mostly schemed to let the ball go to Scott.

HenneChart: Note the ratio of dead-on to otherwise. Our DSR metric doesn't account for that.

This is a highly talented dude, and this was considered a bad game for him. He could have had a much bigger output but for drops.

When Indiana finally mounted their late comeback after giving up the lead, and Penn State was just mauling their pass-blocking, it was Penix playing on another level that accounted for the wild finish.

Part of that is his wind-up, which looks weird, but is actually getting the ball out pretty quickly. If there's any criticism it's that Penix has a Joe Miltonesque tendency to rip a heater when the point is just to get it to 1st base and jogg off the field.

Frames Janklin Factor: Tom Allen is the kind of man who celebrates loudest when random events go his way. He also gave Penn State an extra possession in this one by calling a doomed run with seconds left in the 1st half, which led to a fumble and a free field goal attempt.

Dangerman: We've already discussed Penix, who is going to do at least one WTF thing against Michigan.

The receiver to be most aware of is again the slot guy, though if you were going to add the most superfluous nickname ever to Mister Elias De'Angelo "Whop" Philyor it would be something like "ol' sweet routes". That's not to say he lacks speed. He's a legit 4.5 at least. This is against PSU's nickel safety LaMont Wade:

I also have to recognize RB Stevie Scott III, who won't be in contention for all-conference honors because the conference is so loaded at his position, but plays on the level of a typical 2nd team All-Big Ten RB. Scott is coached by Mike Hart so people make those comparisons, with the rider that he's Mike Hart but Ron Dayne-sized.

Scott is only averaging 3.37 YPC this year but that needs to be in context of an offense that's usually providing him 2.37 yards before he has to burrow through a wall of linebackers to get one more. He's also a plausible receiver; Scott will line up wide ten times a game, but his route is usually that stand-at-the-LOS thing that everyone copied from Baylor. He had 7 YPT last year on 30 targets.

You can also tell Mike Hart has been coaching him; there were several crushing backfield blocks on a day PSU was determined to throw the farm at Penix.

OVERVIEW:

I am worried for the obvious reason, but also because there is a lot more potential in Indiana's offense that they haven't yet accessed. Sheridan hasn't gotten the feel yet for when to call things, and when he doesn't have a plan he falls into patterns that Don Brown should pick up on. Also the receivers have been living in a Peyton Ramsey world for years, and an adjustment from the knuckler to the 102 mph fastball guy isn't an overnight process:

The offense has two less fixable areas weakness, neither of which Michigan is in great shape to exploit. The first is the strength of their interior offensive line. They graduated the mauling RG you remember for injuring Winovich right before the 2018 Game, as well as a center who was a perennial Rimington Watch Lister. IU has been trying to work in more outside zone because their interior guys are bull-rushable, but they're not particularly agile either. When they play Ohio State the Hoosiers are doomed; Michigan's DTs however haven't shown the ability to dominate weak offensive linemen, and the Wolverines haven't surprised anyone with their 3-3-5 attacks since Labor Day weekend of 2017. Indiana's tackles are good enough in the run game to be a problem if Michigan keeps trying to use Kwity and Aidan inside. If Kemp et al. can't hold up to doubles here it's time for cyans.

The second is pass protection, because the tackles aren't great at it, especially Jones, who's just not built to handle a Winovich-like bender. These were back-to-back plays:

The caveat for Michigan is what you saw against Michigan State: if you're throwing a first-read fly route against single coverage you don't have to stand in the pocket long and you can use the time you do have to step into a confident throw. Yes, that is part of the IU offense, and it terrifies me that Penn State had to get away with some stuff they will call 100% of the time on Michigan to not get cut up by it.

No matter how good Kwity and Aidan are at getting into the backfield, if IU can copy MSU's ability to turn that 30% play into a 90% play there's nothing Michigan can do but put up a Help Wanted sign. I imagine Michigan will have some kind of answer besides asking Gray and Perry or whomever to stick with Fryfogle and Marshall and the rest of the 6-foot-2 brigade on an island, but that answer will open up other things. My guess is those other things will be quick underneath passes to punish Brown's propensity to solve his problems with aggression.

Even if you do get them behind the 8-ball, Penix is a dude who can get them out of it.

If this is just a typical wild nonsensical Michigan-Indiana game that Michigan wins on some stupid shit I'll take it.

Moment of Zen:

Since I don't do Dear Diary anymore but I am clipping games maybe I'll add it to this column. I needed some excuse to include this: