{"id":59624,"date":"2024-05-08T16:30:06","date_gmt":"2024-05-08T20:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=59624"},"modified":"2024-05-08T16:30:06","modified_gmt":"2024-05-08T20:30:06","slug":"indiana-lands-coveted-defensive-line-transfer-from-the-mac","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2024\/05\/08\/indiana-lands-coveted-defensive-line-transfer-from-the-mac\/","title":{"rendered":"Indiana Lands Coveted Defensive Line Transfer from the MAC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>With the opening of the <strong>Curt Cignetti<\/strong> era of <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/tag\/indiana-hoosiers\/\" target=\"_self\">Indiana football<\/a>, the Hoosiers have been one of the more active programs in the transfer portal. According to <em>247Sports<\/em>, Indiana has added its 29th incoming transfer by way of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sports-reference.com\/cfb\/players\/cj-west-1.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">CJ West<\/a> out of Kent State. West is the program&#8217;s 12th defensive transfer, fourth on the defensive line, and third from the MAC.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">LETS GET AFTER IT BLOOMINGTON\u203c\ufe0f\u203c\ufe0fGO HOOSIERS!!! <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/IndianaFootball?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@IndianaFootball<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Ved0Sxes2u\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/Ved0Sxes2u<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; CJ West (@CJWEST50) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CJWEST50\/status\/1788213006108697075?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">May 8, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Indiana Lands Massive Defensive Line Transfer, CJ West<\/h2>\n<h3>CJ West at Kent State<\/h3>\n<p>West was initially a three-star recruit in the 2020 cycle. The nose tackle from La Grange, Illinois was first committed to <strong>P.J. Fleck<\/strong> and Minnesota before decommitting and signing with the Flashes. In his true freshman season, West only appeared in three games and recorded a single tackle.<\/p>\n<p>He broke out for the Flashes in 2021 as he logged 12 starts on the defensive line. In total, he accounted for 43 tackles, eight tackles for loss, four sacks, a pass breakup, and he recovered a fumble in the win over Bowling Green. Three of his four sacks came in one game against Akron.<\/p>\n<p>West had to battle injuries in 2022 but he still made 10 starts. His counting stats took a step back, only managing 26 tackles, 4.5 tackles for loss, and a sack on the year.<\/p>\n<p>West returned to form in 2023 and earned Third-Team <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2024\/02\/28\/options-for-more-mac-expansion-after-umass\/\" target=\"_self\">All-MAC<\/a> honors for his efforts. In 12 starts, West ended up with 40 tackles, seven tackles for loss, and two sacks. To add to it, he forced a fumble in the season-opening loss to UCF.<\/p>\n<p>In his career against Power 5 teams, he totaled 17 tackles, 4.5 tackles for loss, three sacks, and a forced fumble in eight games. That includes a four-tackle, one-sack day against Georgia in 2022.<\/p>\n<h3>Go Indiana, Young West<\/h3>\n<p>West joins a transfer-laden defensive line for the Hoosiers and will factor into the rotation immediately.<\/p>\n<p>After four years at Kent State &#8211; minus the free 2020 season &#8211; West has just one year of eligibility remaining. The six-foot-two, 315-pound nose tackle chose the Hoosiers over the likes of Big 10 foes Michigan, Wisconsin, and Rutgers. He also held offers from Cal, Texas A&amp;M, Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas State, Miami (FL), and LSU.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_59629\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-59629\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-59629 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2024\/05\/IMG_7009-300x201.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"201\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2024\/05\/IMG_7009-300x201.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2024\/05\/IMG_7009-1024x685.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2024\/05\/IMG_7009-768x514.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2024\/05\/IMG_7009-1536x1028.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2024\/05\/IMG_7009-2048x1371.jpeg 2048w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2024\/05\/IMG_7009-600x400.jpeg 600w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2024\/05\/IMG_7009-1200x800.jpeg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-59629\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo credit: Mark Stewart \/ Milwaukee Journal Sentinel \/ USA TODAY NETWORK<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Curt Cignetti era at Indiana is off and running. The Hoosiers added yet another transfer and this time it&#8217;s CJ West out of he MAC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4051,"featured_media":59629,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2,17],"tags":[7983,5144,641,5299,800],"class_list":["post-59624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bigten","category-featured","category-news","tag-big-ten-football","tag-curt-cignetti","tag-indiana-hoosiers","tag-kent-state-golden-flashes","tag-p-j-fleck"],"modified_by":"Kate Pearson Halyburton, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4051"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}