Just when you think the Indiana football program was on the precipice of Big Ten relevance after upsetting Missouri in Week Four, their play on Saturday in the conference opener at home against Maryland reminded you otherwise. Despite being four-point favorites and riding tons of positive momentum, the Hoosiers turned in their worst performance of the season in a disappointing 37-15 defeat to a Terrapins team playing their first ever league game as a member of the Big Ten. In a familiar refrain that has become extremely commonplace in Bloomington, it’s back to the drawing board once again.
Though the overarching narrative for Indiana has been how a struggling defense continues to hold the team back, that wasn’t completely the case over the weekend. Yes, the secondary was terrible and allowed three touchdown catches of 25 yards or more, including two thrown by backup quarterback Caleb Rowe who entered the game after Maryland starter C.J. Brown injured his left arm late in the first half. Nevertheless, the theme from Saturday’s meltdown was offensive in nature and centered around a passing game that appears to be showing alarming signs of digression from last season.
Quarterback Nate Sudfeld was expected to have a banner year. Even though he lost one of his favorite targets Cody Latimer to the NFL in the offseason, the passing game wasn’t expected to taper off too much especially with two experienced senior wide receivers in Shane Wynn and Nick Stoner. He also has a potentially game-changing newcomer in true freshman Dominique Booth, rated as the 48th best wideout prospect in the 2014 recruiting class according to Rivals. With Latimer in attendance Saturday as his Denver Broncos had a bye, IU was unable to find the end zone via the pass. In fact, they’ve only been able to do so twice all season so far, which ranks last in the Big Ten.
Tevin Coleman is clearly one of the conference’s top running backs, and had another triple digit rushing yard game with 122 yards in addition to running for Indiana’s only touchdown of the day. With the score, he increased his streak of reaching the end zone to 13 consecutive games, breaking a 26-year school record held by legendary IU tailback Anthony Thompson. Unfortunately, he only had 37 yards at halftime and much of his production came with the Hoosiers trailing big. His four-yard touchdown run came with Maryland leading 34-9.
As if the recurrence of the big play blues on defense wasn’t bad enough, now it appears as if the offense runs the risk of becoming too one-dimensional. You saw hints of this in the season-opener against Indiana State when the ground game accounted for 79.3% of all offensive plays. That’s fine against an overmatched FCS foe, but generally won’t work when you’re facing higher caliber opposition (unless you’re Wisconsin, maybe). Maryland had been abysmal defending the run but held Indiana to its lowest output of the year yardage wise with 206 and a single meaningless fourth quarter touchdown that at most simply made the final score a little less one-sided.
When you run a spread option offense like Indiana’s it often helps to have a mobile quarterback that can give you an added ground threat, especially on third and medium situations where the defense will tend to bring added pressure and evading the blitz can be the difference between a first down and a punt. Oregon’s Marcus Mariota and Ohio State under both Braxton Miller and his replacement J.T. Barrett are perfect examples. Sudfeld is a tad limited in this regard, and when his passing accuracy suffers like it did against Maryland teams can load the gaps and have increased confidence in being able to neutralize a potent rushing attack which IU most certainly possesses.
From a big picture standpoint, what this loss indicates is the fact that Indiana football remains hamstrung when it comes to capturing the momentum from an unexpected victory and channeling it into a consistent run of success over multiple games. It’s a frustrating pattern that has become an unfortunate hallmark of the program. You want to know how bad it is? Over the past decade, the longest winning streak the Hoosiers have been able to muster is three games which took place on four separate occasions. Even then, all four were early in the year and made possible by favorable non-conference opponents.
I’ve consistently hearkened back to my preseason piece detailing the six must-win games for Indiana if they want to make a bowl to close out the 2014 season. Three of those contests have taken place already and the Hoosiers have dropped two of them. If not for the unexpected triumph at Missouri, this team would be facing a legitimate uphill battle at 1-3. That said, they have two wins on the board and hope still remains with four more wins required and their final non-Big Ten opponent North Texas heading to Memorial Stadium this coming Saturday in what should be the second-easiest game on the schedule.
With a third of the season complete, Indiana football is facing an obstacle they’re used to seeing on a yearly basis and that is inconsistent play. There’s simply no excuse for coming out flat and uncompetitive the week after a potentially program-changing win as this team did against Maryland. The first inklings of impatience and perceived lack of progress in the program from the fan base began to show after the Bowling Green loss. After what was observed on Saturday in a home game where all the pre-game momentum appeared to be on IU’s side, that sentiment shows no signs of abating unless there’s significant improvement over the next few weeks.
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