Indiana by the Numbers

After the Minnesota near debacle I appreciate the Scarlet Knights for playing almost exactly as the numbers would show them to.  They were decent in the few places they were supposed to be, and "rutgery" in the places they were supposed to be.  After playing 2 teams back to back with few strengths and many weaknesses we face Indiana who has quite a few more strengths....but still racks up a lot of weaknesses.

Things Indiana is Good At

As one would expect almost all of Indiana's strengths lay on offense.   The only thing the D does well is recover fumbles but UM usually does a good job not giving those up.   Indiana also doesn't turn the ball over much which is a credit to them considering how much yardage they generate.  Creating fumbles has been a massive issue for UM D as it is now among the worst in the nation in that category. 

Offensively I included "rushing offense" in Indiana's strengths even though they don't rank top 30ish because the excellent Jordan Howard missed quite a few games either completely or a shell of himself.  He seems to be back to full form as of last week and is a guy I wish we had gotten in the transfer market - he is a beast. 

Indiana has a quick strike deep ball offense - one thing Iowa did an excellent job last week was keeping everything in front of them; some games Sudfeld has a 10-11 yards per attempt; he was down near 5 last week which is Nick Sheridan range.  Indiana is deadly in the red zone.  Last - whether due to the quick strike nature of their offense, tired defenses, or just a QB with a quick release Indiana does not get sacked a lot.  Nor do they give up a lot of TFL so expectations should be in check in term of getting to the QB or creating negative plays.  It is not that easy against Indiana.

Things Indiana is Not so Good At

Indiana is not good at many things.  Starting at the bottom one thing I have noticed doing this for various opponents the past 5-6 weeks is that Big 10 special teams is just bad.   Not mediocre but bad.... almost all our opponents save NW really have sucked at special teams.  This leads to a huge advantage to UM.  The ave starting spot for UM's 6 TD drives last week was our own 49 yd line i.e. 51 yds to score.    Indiana continues this trend with horrid kickoff returns, bad kickoff return defense (hello Lewis), and a bad net punting game.  Expect more good field position for UM this week.  They are also often penalized and no surprise lose the TOP game (by design).

Offensively, Indiana is surprisingly bad at 3rd down conversions.  Sudfeld's completion % is 60% which is good considering how many deep balls he throws but the backups that played when he was out hurt Indiana's data point there so you can ignore it.

Defensively, Indiana is not good.  Among the nation's worst in total defense (yds given up per game) and scoring defense.  The rushing defense is not terrible but mediocre while the passing defense is putrid.  Hopefully Jake can take his talents from last week on the road.  They are also abysmal on getting teams off the field on 3rd down.