Indiana University Athletics
A New Standard Set
9/28/2018 11:52:00 AM | Football
By: Andy Graham
IUHoosiers.com
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - Indiana football fans can perhaps now subscribe to this happy supposition:
As long as head coach Tom Allen and his staff are in Bloomington, the Hoosiers are going to field a very competitive defense.
The 2018 season constitutes quite a test of that hypothesis. IU graduated seven defensive starters from its 2017 unit. Now there are 13 freshmen or sophomores on the defensive two-deep chart heading into Saturday's noon kickoff at Rutgers.
But the youthful Hoosiers currently rank 29th nationally in total defense, allowing just 329.5 yards per game – actually an improvement on last year's 340.1 yard average that ranked IU 27th by season's end.
It's still a small sample size this fall, with just a third of the season gone and the Big Ten campaign just begun, but it continues a trend since Allen arrived in Bloomington as defensive coordinator for the 2016 campaign.
Lest we forget (and Hoosier fans would doubtless like to), here is where Indiana's defense ranked nationally the year before Allen's advent: No. 121, surrendering 509.5 yards per game on average. That meant IU was just seven slots from the very bottom among all 128
Football Bowl Subdivision teams.
And that was sadly in the same general ballpark with many Indiana defensive rankings after Bill Mallory's coaching tenure ended in 1996.
But Allen changed course in a hurry.
Allen's first IU defense jumped up 76 spots nationally to finish 45th in 2016. And the stated goal these days is to consistently field defenses in the Top 25. The Hoosiers seem to be knocking on that door.
And beyond total defense, there are specific defensive categories in which IU is making its mark.
Indiana is tied for first in the Big Ten (7th nationally) with nine takeaways through four games. It has recovered five fumbles (1st in the Big Ten, 9th nationally) in addition to picking off four passes and have scored 31 points off those takeaways.
The Hoosiers have allowed just three opposing 300-yard passers during Allen's entire tenure in Bloomington. And the current, youthful secondary is adding to that legacy.
Michigan State's Brian Lewerke threw for 219 yards last Saturday, but he was the first quarterback all season to eclipse the 200-yard passing threshold against IU.
Indiana presently stands in the upper half of the Big Ten in seven major defensive categories, and in the top five in five of those:
Even while sustaining last Saturday's 35-21 setback to the Spartans, IU's first loss of the season, the Hoosier defense recorded nine tackles for loss, with two recovered fumbles and two interceptions.
MSU finished with a modest 131 yards rushing (just 3.3 per carry, even counting the clinching TD of 75 yards on a jet-sweep when IU, playing a third-stringer in a key spot due to injuries, was caught in a misalignment in the fourth quarter).
Without that one run, the Spartan rushing totals on the night would have been just 56 yards on 39 carries (1.4 per rush).
But the Hoosier defenders were the first to note, post-game, that good wasn't good enough.
"We didn't come out with a win, so we didn't play good enough," said junior safety Khalil Bryant, who notched his first career interception Saturday. "We may have made strides at times, but we've got to finish, and play the same way the whole game."
Safety counterpart Jonathan Crawford, a standout senior who posted eight solo tackles and a fumble recovery, put it this way:
"Had an opportunity with a really good team, at home, and didn't take advantage of it."
"In the end, defense didn't finish. That is our one word (motto for the season). Obviously, we played hard but, in the end, you've got to come through."
IU defensive line coach and co-defensive coordinator Mark Hagen cited three primary instances marring what was, overall, a solid defensive performance:
But good things can come in threes, too – such as three sacks by the Hoosiers for the second straight game after having just one apiece in the first two games this fall.
"Some of it is the team you're playing … and part of it is we didn't execute those first couple of games," Hagen said. " … Sometimes you're going to have more opportunities than others and, the last couple of games, we've made them pay off more. Got to keep it rolling.
"Part of pass rush, too, is you have to be successful on early downs. If people can keep you off-balance, defensively, you're not going to have the opportunities … I just think we've done a better job of getting teams in third-down situations and executing better.
"We'd love to see four or five sacks a game, but I've seen progress the past couple of weeks. It's never maybe as good as you want it, as a coach, but I think our guys are coming on and getting better."
Part of that is having standout senior edge rusher Nile Sykes on the field at times with IU's other primary pass-rusher, junior Allen Stallings IV. Technically, the two play the same end spot, but are more readily inserted together on obvious passing downs.
"A key for us, I think, defensively, is when we can get Nile and Allen on the field at the same time," Hagen said. "And getting the other guys to understand that those can't be the only two we have rushing the quarterback."
Sykes, who missed all last season after sustaining a weight-lifting injury on the final day of summer workouts, is happy to be back in the mix – and feels the Hoosier defensive front is finding cohesion after the departure of a trio of starters in Greg Gooch, Robert McCray III and Nate Hoff.
"Coming into the season, we had a lot of new faces on the defensive line," Sykes said. "I think, as time goes on, we'll play better together. We'll create more chemistry as the season goes along, and that's how it should be.
"We may have started slow but … week by week, we should see significant improvement with the defense. And I think that's what we're doing."
Hagen liked the sacks Saturday, and liked the three second-half takeaways that helped the Hoosiers reduce their three-TD deficit to a single score.
"We got a couple of takeaways there," he said, "to give us an opportunity to get back into the game."
One of those was Bryant's pick in the flat that set the Hoosiers up at the MSU 11 with 0:39 left in the third quarter.
Sykes, who earlier had supplied a 19-yard sack, pressured Lewerke into throwing sooner – and higher – than the quarterback had intended. "Shout-out to Nile," Bryant said. "Actually, we had practiced that (approach against a screen pass).
"They like to run screens, back-side, some trick plays. I stayed home and I saw the screen coming. I saw the running back drifting out. So I was coming up on him to make the tackle. I guess maybe he over-threw him or something, and I just went ahead and attacked the ball."
IU also got Lewerke scrambling at times with some push from its defensive interior, despite stalwart senior defensive tackle Jacob Robinson missing the game with an injury.
But redshirt sophomore Jerome Johnson, who had split snaps with Robinson in earlier games, stepped up well. Hagen said he liked what he got from Ja'merez Bowen and Brandon Wilson, too, and also got true freshman Shamar Jones into the fray.
More young Hoosiers are seeing snaps, especially on defense, where 33 players have already seen action.
"Our young defense is growing," Crawford said. "Nine tackles for loss and three sacks and four takeaways against that (MSU) team is the kind of performance that you want in those areas, but we have to continue to focus on the little things.
"You get guys dinged up and new guys are playing, and a young team gets even younger pretty quickly at times when things happen a certain way, so that's part of the growth process of our team."
Hagen also emphasized process.
"It's a work in progress," he said. "Lot to build on. Can't live in the past. We've made our corrections and now the focus is going out and being better this week when we go over and play Rutgers."
Bryant has confidence the Hoosiers will do just that.
"We always put an emphasis on being resilient," Bryant said. "Being able to bounce back. Proving how good we are. We'll take it into next week, take it into that next game. The next one is always the most important one, but we've got something to prove.
"We know we're better than what we played Saturday. We'll be trying to make a statement and play our best."
Their best is pretty good. Even by national standards.
Because new the defensive standard seems set at IU.
IUHoosiers.com
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - Indiana football fans can perhaps now subscribe to this happy supposition:
As long as head coach Tom Allen and his staff are in Bloomington, the Hoosiers are going to field a very competitive defense.
The 2018 season constitutes quite a test of that hypothesis. IU graduated seven defensive starters from its 2017 unit. Now there are 13 freshmen or sophomores on the defensive two-deep chart heading into Saturday's noon kickoff at Rutgers.
But the youthful Hoosiers currently rank 29th nationally in total defense, allowing just 329.5 yards per game – actually an improvement on last year's 340.1 yard average that ranked IU 27th by season's end.
It's still a small sample size this fall, with just a third of the season gone and the Big Ten campaign just begun, but it continues a trend since Allen arrived in Bloomington as defensive coordinator for the 2016 campaign.
Lest we forget (and Hoosier fans would doubtless like to), here is where Indiana's defense ranked nationally the year before Allen's advent: No. 121, surrendering 509.5 yards per game on average. That meant IU was just seven slots from the very bottom among all 128
Football Bowl Subdivision teams.
And that was sadly in the same general ballpark with many Indiana defensive rankings after Bill Mallory's coaching tenure ended in 1996.
But Allen changed course in a hurry.
Allen's first IU defense jumped up 76 spots nationally to finish 45th in 2016. And the stated goal these days is to consistently field defenses in the Top 25. The Hoosiers seem to be knocking on that door.
And beyond total defense, there are specific defensive categories in which IU is making its mark.
Indiana is tied for first in the Big Ten (7th nationally) with nine takeaways through four games. It has recovered five fumbles (1st in the Big Ten, 9th nationally) in addition to picking off four passes and have scored 31 points off those takeaways.
The Hoosiers have allowed just three opposing 300-yard passers during Allen's entire tenure in Bloomington. And the current, youthful secondary is adding to that legacy.
Michigan State's Brian Lewerke threw for 219 yards last Saturday, but he was the first quarterback all season to eclipse the 200-yard passing threshold against IU.
Indiana presently stands in the upper half of the Big Ten in seven major defensive categories, and in the top five in five of those:
- Pass defense (2nd, 156.3 yards per game)
- Opponent third-down conversion percentage (5th, .327, just 18-of-55)
- Opponent fourth-down conversion percentage (1st, .167, 1-of-6)
- Takeaway margin (5th, +4)
- Pass defense efficiency (5th, 111.2)
Even while sustaining last Saturday's 35-21 setback to the Spartans, IU's first loss of the season, the Hoosier defense recorded nine tackles for loss, with two recovered fumbles and two interceptions.
MSU finished with a modest 131 yards rushing (just 3.3 per carry, even counting the clinching TD of 75 yards on a jet-sweep when IU, playing a third-stringer in a key spot due to injuries, was caught in a misalignment in the fourth quarter).
Without that one run, the Spartan rushing totals on the night would have been just 56 yards on 39 carries (1.4 per rush).
But the Hoosier defenders were the first to note, post-game, that good wasn't good enough.
"We didn't come out with a win, so we didn't play good enough," said junior safety Khalil Bryant, who notched his first career interception Saturday. "We may have made strides at times, but we've got to finish, and play the same way the whole game."
Safety counterpart Jonathan Crawford, a standout senior who posted eight solo tackles and a fumble recovery, put it this way:
"Had an opportunity with a really good team, at home, and didn't take advantage of it."
"In the end, defense didn't finish. That is our one word (motto for the season). Obviously, we played hard but, in the end, you've got to come through."
IU defensive line coach and co-defensive coordinator Mark Hagen cited three primary instances marring what was, overall, a solid defensive performance:
- MSU's scoring drive that gave the Spartans a 21-7 cushion heading into halftime, switching the momentum after IU had seemingly recovered from an early 14-0 hole (including a buzz-kill pick-6). "If it's still 14-7 at half, it's a totally different mindset," Hagen said.
- A successful fake field goal that IU guessed was coming but still didn't stop that made it 28-7, Spartans, in the third quarter. "We were in the correct call," Hagen noted. "We lost leverage on the tight end … if we fit outside of it, it's a dead play."
- That Jalen Nailor 75-yard jet-sweep TD after IU had pulled within 28-21. "That's frustrating, because we had defended the run all night," Hagen said. " … Sometimes three plays wipe out a bunch of good plays."
But good things can come in threes, too – such as three sacks by the Hoosiers for the second straight game after having just one apiece in the first two games this fall.
"Some of it is the team you're playing … and part of it is we didn't execute those first couple of games," Hagen said. " … Sometimes you're going to have more opportunities than others and, the last couple of games, we've made them pay off more. Got to keep it rolling.
"Part of pass rush, too, is you have to be successful on early downs. If people can keep you off-balance, defensively, you're not going to have the opportunities … I just think we've done a better job of getting teams in third-down situations and executing better.
"We'd love to see four or five sacks a game, but I've seen progress the past couple of weeks. It's never maybe as good as you want it, as a coach, but I think our guys are coming on and getting better."
Part of that is having standout senior edge rusher Nile Sykes on the field at times with IU's other primary pass-rusher, junior Allen Stallings IV. Technically, the two play the same end spot, but are more readily inserted together on obvious passing downs.
"A key for us, I think, defensively, is when we can get Nile and Allen on the field at the same time," Hagen said. "And getting the other guys to understand that those can't be the only two we have rushing the quarterback."
Sykes, who missed all last season after sustaining a weight-lifting injury on the final day of summer workouts, is happy to be back in the mix – and feels the Hoosier defensive front is finding cohesion after the departure of a trio of starters in Greg Gooch, Robert McCray III and Nate Hoff.
"Coming into the season, we had a lot of new faces on the defensive line," Sykes said. "I think, as time goes on, we'll play better together. We'll create more chemistry as the season goes along, and that's how it should be.
"We may have started slow but … week by week, we should see significant improvement with the defense. And I think that's what we're doing."
Hagen liked the sacks Saturday, and liked the three second-half takeaways that helped the Hoosiers reduce their three-TD deficit to a single score.
"We got a couple of takeaways there," he said, "to give us an opportunity to get back into the game."
One of those was Bryant's pick in the flat that set the Hoosiers up at the MSU 11 with 0:39 left in the third quarter.
Sykes, who earlier had supplied a 19-yard sack, pressured Lewerke into throwing sooner – and higher – than the quarterback had intended. "Shout-out to Nile," Bryant said. "Actually, we had practiced that (approach against a screen pass).
"They like to run screens, back-side, some trick plays. I stayed home and I saw the screen coming. I saw the running back drifting out. So I was coming up on him to make the tackle. I guess maybe he over-threw him or something, and I just went ahead and attacked the ball."
IU also got Lewerke scrambling at times with some push from its defensive interior, despite stalwart senior defensive tackle Jacob Robinson missing the game with an injury.
But redshirt sophomore Jerome Johnson, who had split snaps with Robinson in earlier games, stepped up well. Hagen said he liked what he got from Ja'merez Bowen and Brandon Wilson, too, and also got true freshman Shamar Jones into the fray.
More young Hoosiers are seeing snaps, especially on defense, where 33 players have already seen action.
"Our young defense is growing," Crawford said. "Nine tackles for loss and three sacks and four takeaways against that (MSU) team is the kind of performance that you want in those areas, but we have to continue to focus on the little things.
"You get guys dinged up and new guys are playing, and a young team gets even younger pretty quickly at times when things happen a certain way, so that's part of the growth process of our team."
Hagen also emphasized process.
"It's a work in progress," he said. "Lot to build on. Can't live in the past. We've made our corrections and now the focus is going out and being better this week when we go over and play Rutgers."
Bryant has confidence the Hoosiers will do just that.
"We always put an emphasis on being resilient," Bryant said. "Being able to bounce back. Proving how good we are. We'll take it into next week, take it into that next game. The next one is always the most important one, but we've got something to prove.
"We know we're better than what we played Saturday. We'll be trying to make a statement and play our best."
Their best is pretty good. Even by national standards.
Because new the defensive standard seems set at IU.
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