Previously: Indiana Offense 

I came into this year reasonably optimistic about the IU defense. They lost some big pieces on the defensive line and star LB Micah McFadden, but returned an experienced secondary with several key pieces. So far, my optimism has not been rewarded. Indiana enters Saturday's clash with Michigan ranked 73rd in SP+ defense. Their pass defense, which was supposed to be a strength of the team, is getting gashed week after week. The remnants of the 2020 defense are still here, but the unit is not clicking. 

The Film: For this game I used the Nebraska tape. The Huskers have a pretty solid offense and this was the most recent game that Indiana played. Cincinnati also seemed like a suitable option but I opted to go with Nebraska because the Huskers had more success on the ground and I wanted to see what that would look like, given how Michigan's offense sets up. However, some Cincinnati clips will appear, as I made my way through that game looking for clues. 

Personnel: Click the chart for big or here for PDF. 

Indiana is still true to the Tom Allen fundamentals, running a 4-2-5 with a stand-up BULL on the DL and a "HUSKY" which is functionally a slot corner. On the defensive line, Indiana is running the geriatric Alfred Bryant out there at the BULL position, which has the ability to pass rush or drop into coverage. I didn't like Bryant much last fall, but he didn't do poorly enough in this game for me to put the cyan back on him. For now, he's beaten the allegations. Beau Robbins is the new starter at the other EDGE spot and this is a major step down from Ryder Anderson last season. Robbins generated no pass rush and got shoved around too often on off-tackle runs for my liking. Those two play the lion's share of snaps at the ends of the line, while Dasan McCullough plays a lot as the fifth lineman when Indiana goes 5-2-4 (often on running downs). UCLA transfer Myles Jackson is the nominal reserve at these positions. 

The interior of the DL sees DeMarcus Elliott return. I was not a fan of his last season and thought his tape this year was better, but we opted to keep the cyan on him. Weston Kramer exits from the program and is replaced by Sio Nofoagatoto'a, who was rotating in with Elliott last season. They don't get any passrush from these positions, but Nofoagatoto'a did okay at not budging. JH Tevis gets a lot of snaps to the point he's basically a starter, rotating in on many passing downs. The backups beyond these three are a step down, LeDarrius Cox and Patrick Lucas in particular were culpable for some rushing plays against, while I didn't see that much of Nick James but he has played some this season. 

The linebacker position sees veteran Cam Jones still around and he was the best player on the Indiana defense against Nebraska. Having a fine season, Jones is one of the few veterans who has not concerningly regressed on this team. Aaron Casey is the new starter, filling the hole left by the pass rushing savant that was Micah McFadden. Casey did not have a particularly great showing in the game I saw, particularly with tackling, but he did manage to avoid getting the cyan. The two deep is populated by transfers, including Miami's Bradley Jennings and Jared Casey, but they don't come on too often. Matt Hohlt was used a decent bit against Nebraska but hasn't played much in other games this season. 

The CB room was supposed to be the strength of the defense but right now it has been a disappointing season. Tiawan Mullen, 2020's Dangerman and the author of one of the great freshman corner seasons in B1G history back in 2019, turned down the NFL and right now it's looking like he really should've gone. We will delve into his performance later but the numbers are ugly and he has lost his star. Jaylin Williams dealt with injury against Nebraska and has also been unusually choppy, losing his star in the process as well. Noah Pierre is a first time starter at the HUSKY position and he did okay, but all three of these players contribute to the struggling pass defense. These three corners rarely come off the field but when they do, Alabama transfer Brylan Lanier, Christopher Keys, and Louis Moore fill in. 

Super seniors Bryant Fitzgerald and Devon Matthews are returning starters to anchor the safety position. They are responsible for some of the explosive, over-the-top plays that Indiana has allowed on defense and are not approaching the star level. There's only one other safety to speak of here which is Josh Sanguenetti, who rotates in and has played quite a bit over the last couple of seasons. He's fine. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: We have to blitz to stop bad things from happening]

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Base set: Indiana rolls with a pretty simple 4-2-5 look most of the time, which qualifies as their base set. Here it is: 

Two ends, the BULL being the stand-up. HUSKY being #21 Pierre to the bottom of the screen in the slot, two traditional LBs, and four standard DBs. 

They went to a 5-2-4 a decent bit in the game I watched against Nebraska, taking the HUSKY off and rolling with three down linemen and two stand up ends: 

Those were the only two looks they featured worth noting. 

Man or zone coverage: Indiana is still in its base Cover 2 as they have been the last few years in the Tom Allen era. They mixed in some other zone coverages when they were going with different blitz packages (which happened often!) and man coverage flashed occasionally, but they still comfortably fit in the zone bucket overall.  

Pressure: Indiana was a very blitzy team in this game, related to their inability to get organic pressure when rushing four. They rushed more than four on 60.1% of snaps(!!!!), the highest I've tracked thus far for a team. On the flip side, like Iowa, they never rushed fewer than four on a play I charted against Nebraska. They're trying to get the QB! 

Dangerman: This year's honoree is WLB Cam Jones, who had a fine game against the Cornhuskers. Jones is a player that Seth liked many years ago and perhaps this is the season he has finally ascended into star status in the broader B1G. I don't think he is there yet, but he was Indiana's best defensive player in this game and showed the building blocks to possibly get All-B1G recognition if the rest of the season goes well.

Jones flashed in this game in a way not unlike the way Micah McFadden used to: as a blitzer. Here he is run blitzing, knifing through the line of scrimmage, and bringing down the RB for a TFL to end the drive: 

LB #4 lined up between the DTs, standing up on the LoS

Indiana created the most discomfort for Nebraska QB Casey Thompson by blitzing Cam Jones alongside a DB on a five or six-man pressure. This ThunderSack scoop n' score is greatly aided by no one blocking Jones, but he and the HUSKY Pierre bring down the QB and create a defensive TD, Iowa-style: 

If there is one thing that Jones needs to clean up, it is his tackling. He whiffs on the sack in this next clip, but gets points for the manner in which he fights off the RB trying to execute the blitz pick up: 

LB #4 blitzing around the left edge

Jones stood out to me as the player who is the item on the defensive roster who most closely resembles a true weapon that the Hoosiers can use to their advantage. So many of the players on this side of the ball are "meh", but Jones caught my eye by flashing some dangerous traits. FWIW, and I know we Don't Like These Guys Right Now, but PFF has Jones as their highest graded defensive player for the Hoosiers too. 

Overview

So what's going on with the Indiana defense? They are struggling so far this season, giving up 30 points to WKU, 45 to Cincy, and 35 to Nebraska... but why? If I had to pinpoint where the problems come from, I would start by focusing on the secondary, which is having some problems. Over those three games I just mentioned, opposing QBs have completed 68.5% of their passes at 8.7 yards per attempt with 8 TD to 3 INT. The Indiana pass defense is giving up yardage week after week, a disturbingly high number of those coming on big plays that blow the doors wide open. Plays like this: 

At the root of the problems for the pass defense is something you may have noticed in that clip. Specifically, the four man rush that the Hoosiers sent on that play didn't make Casey Thompson sweat. As I alluded to in the blitzing section, Indiana was blitz-happy in this game because they were getting torched any time they rushed four. When they rushed more, they got home with decent success. The departure of rushers like Ryder Anderson in the offseason has left Indiana without anyone on their starting defensive line who could generate an organic pressure even against an iffy OL like Nebraska possesses.

On this next play, Nebraska dials up a seam route, the ole Cov2 beater, matching up WR Trey Palmer on LB Aaron Casey and feasting because no one lays a finger on Thompson with a four man rush: 

The very next play resulted in a TD when Thompson, again with all day to throw against a four man rush, found Old Friend Oliver Martin toasting Tiawan Mullen down the sideline: 

That play in particular caught my eye and was the most concerning development. Mullen had impeccable stud credentials as a lock down corner through two seasons at Indiana, projected to be the best corner in the conference entering last season, but his junior year encountered the injury bug. He opted to return to school and so far it is not going well. Over the past two weeks, Mullen has been targeted 12 times in coverage, allowing 9 completions for 178 yards and 3 TDs. He's already allowed nearly as many receptions in 25 targets as he did in 2019 in 40 targets. Mullen has allowed as many TDs through 5/12ths of a season as he did in 2019 and 2020 combined. 

In watching the tape, I felt that more often than not, it wasn't Mullen getting blown by like in the above clip. His coverage has generally been decent, but he's been up against good receivers and QBs making good throws. Like this: 

You can chalk it up to tough assignments and bad luck, sure, but Mullen also used to handle tough assignments with no problem. He no longer is doing so. I still thought Mullen was stellar in run support, but his declining coverage abilities has hamstrung the Indiana defense and I don't think there's any debate about that. 

Fellow corner Jaylin Williams was also projected to be a star this season but is only posting middling results. He's not getting attacked through the air the way Mullen is but there are still more holes than you'd like. Here he allows a receiver to get open vs. a crossing route and then misses the tackle: 

CB #23

Williams was lifted from the Nebraska game prematurely due to a shoulder injury so I consulted tape of other games for a little more input on him. He was on the hook for a TD against Cincinnati when he was late to recognize his assignment in the end zone: 

CB #23 in the slot to the top

It sounds like Williams is questionable for tomorrow's game. Indiana needs him healthy because he's better than any other corner they have, but also they have to be slightly disappointed with his performance up to this point. Williams and Mullen combined were supposed to be one of the best CB tandems in the B1G. Right now they are not locking any receivers down and are part of a secondary that is giving up 235.6 receiving yards per game. 

The entire DB group gets little help from the DL if the Hoosiers not blitzing, as we've established, but they are culpable as a unit for a big chunk of the ugliness of that number. Gigantic busts are happening far too often this season. You saw it in two clips so far from the Nebraska game, and I'll offer you one from the Cincy game as well, with Mullen the most likely offender here: 

Without the privilege of the All-22, it was often hard to tell what was going on at the safety level in coverage against Nebraska but what I did see was not particularly great on those busts. Their tackling was better, I will give them credit for that. Bryant Fitzgerald made a nice stop here after allowing a completion: 

Against a spread offense like Nebraska, the safeties were often asked to take a guy and Fitzgerald did turn in the other highlight play of the game for the defense on this INT: 

The DB level did a decent job stopping the bleeding once catches were made, something that cannot be said about the front 7 (or 6 for this team, I guess). Tackling at the LB level was very poor. I mentioned that it was the weak spot of Jones' game but it was a disaster for the other starter, Aaron Casey. The tackling on this next clip is extremely poor all around, starting with Casey: 

MLB #44

Here's another instance where Casey takes a strange route to the ballcarrier, blows the tackle, and combined with James Head Jr. shooting into the backfield and leaving the edge exposed, this is a huge pickup on a 2nd & 21 play: 

The tackling on this play from the WKU game hung in my brain as a particularly poor display: 

The tackling helped make run defense go from bad to worse for Indiana against Nebraska, but on a large number of plays, it wasn't bad at all. Nebraska's RBs rushed for 4.0 YPC overall, Cincy was mostly contained, and WKU survived by ripping off a couple of huge plays but otherwise didn't have tons of down-to-down success. The DTs don't do a ton for me but they did a good job of not moving on a fair number of plays. This was the best work I saw from their best DT, Sio Nofoagatoto'a: 

DT #50

Also good stuff from Casey on that one looping around the left edge. Despite general competency in run defense, I did get the sense that when Michigan loads up the TEs and goes with their meat packages, they should be able to slam away at Indiana, like they did Maryland. Nebraska wasn't running many gap concepts but here they ran Counter GT and the pullers obliterate both Noah Pierre and Casey to open a huge hole: 

EDGE Beau Robbins (#41) also gets caved in on that one to open the lane off-tackle. Plays like that + his lack of pass rush helped earn him the cyan. 

Finally let's talk about the DEs and passing downs. The lack of pass rush has popped up time and time again in these unsuccessful clips and it is a major problem. The blitz packages that Indiana tried were pretty successful against Nebraska, but they have their drawbacks and also the Huskers are a badly organized offensive line. Most often the blitzes come from either the LB or the slot corner (often HUSKY Noah Pierre). If there's a 5 man defensive line, then sometimes a LB/CB will blitz while the BULL (normally Alfred Bryant) drops into coverage. That's what happened here on a near INT: 

EDGE #92 lined up to the top

That is something Michigan will need to be aware of, but it has its benefits. Nebraska ran a TE out into the flat and it was Bryant who was supposed to be covering him, creating a mismatch that the Huskers saw and picked up a decent gain on: 

If Michigan sees Bryant trying to cover Luke Schoonmaker, they need to throw it to him. 

Otherwise, the blitzes Indiana runs are going to test Michigan's pass protection's ability to recognize where it's coming from. If they have an assignment to the rusher, it should be no problem. No one on this defense except perhaps Jones are good enough at pass rushing to get free if a blocker gets their hands on them. But Nebraska had trouble on some occasions recognizing the rush and it led to sacks and intentional grounding calls, like this rush from Pierre: 

In totality, Indiana is a not particularly great defense made up of mediocre players. The DTs are generally okay but can probably be pushed around by Michigan's muscle in the trenches. The DEs can't generate organic pass rush on their own. One LB is quite good, the other one is learning on the fly and tackling across the front of the defense is a problem. The corners are not the lockdown agents they once were and busts are happening over the top. Indiana isn't breaking up many passes and they are giving up too many long ones. I struggle to see a major test here. 

What does this mean for Michigan? 

The primary thing I came away from this wanting to see is Michigan heave the ball down the field. I assume they'll be able to run it on Indiana if they want to, but after watching Nebraska and Cincy tear up Indiana's pass defense through the air, I decided this was a game where I want to see JJ let it fly. The deep shots that have been open the last few weeks will likely be open on a number of occasions again and after a tentative, game-manager(y) performance against Iowa, I'd like to see McCarthy be a bit more aggressive in sharpening up his arm pre-PSU. If Michigan is able to contain the Indiana offense easily enough, as I expect, then once they get a lead in this game, they shouldn't have to turtle like they have the last couple weeks in the fourth quarter. With a bigger margin and an ability to be more aggressive, I'd like to see JJ get truly acclimated to the job and get some chemistry going with his receivers. A few 50+ yard passing plays, please.