Five Key Questions for IU Football

Indiana football officially gets underway with camp this week in Bloomington.

Newcomers report on Tuesday, veterans on Wednesday and the first official practice is on Thursday. I believe the local media will have their first opportunity to talk to players after Thursday’s practice.

With that in mind, here are five key questions regarding Indiana football as the Hoosiers are just over a month away from the 2015 season opener Sept. 5 at home against Southern Illinois.

1. HOW WILL NATE SUDFELD BOUNCE BACK FROM HIS SHOULDER INJURY?: All indications point to Sudfeld being back and ready to go and since it was his non-throwing shoulder that should help matters as well. Still, every time Sudfeld gets driven to the turf in a similar fashion like he was in that Game 6 against Iowa last year, you have to figure IU fans will hold their collective breaths. If Sudfeld can return to the form of his sophomore year where he was a precision passer, completing around 60 percent of his throws for more than 2,500 yards and 21 touchdowns, the Indiana offense has the potential to score a lot of points again this year. A big key though will be his receivers and finding some go-to targets early. I thought last year he struggled a little bit out of the gate before the Iowa injury and some of that was that he didn’t have any receivers that would go up and get the ball like had been in the case in the past. He only had six TD passes in the first six games at the time he got hurt. Still, the No. 1 question is how effective will Sudfeld be coming off the injury.

2. JUST HOW GOOD IS JORDAN HOWARD?: To this point all we really know is that he put up crazy numbers a year ago as a sophomore at UAB. And he did. He rushed for 1,587 yards on 306 carries (an average of 5.2 yards per carry) and scored 13 touchdowns. He ranked seventh nationally with 132.3 rushing yards per game. He had eight 100-yard rushing games including the last four in a row. As a freshman, he started five games and ran for 881 yards. He has decent size at 6-1, 225, but fair or not, I think the thought that creeps into the back of your mind is, “Those stats are great but how good was the competition he was playing against and more specifically how will his game translate to the Big Ten?” I know those are the questions being asked by a lot of Indiana fans heading into the season and they go right to the heart of the initial question here: Just how good is Jordan Howard? He clearly has big shoes to fill but no one is expecting him to be the next Tevin Coleman. If he can be a guy that moves the chains, especially on those third-and-3 or third-and-2 situations that would be huge. If he turns out to be really good, someone like Sudfeld should only benefit from having a big time threat lining up behind him. It should allow both players to do a lot more because the offense will be less one dimensional. This is one of those things where only time will tell but it will surely be a point of emphasis as the season gets under way.

3. WILL THE DEFENSE BE IMPROVED IN BRIAN KNORR’S SECOND SEASON?: Let’s face it, with IU it’s always about the defense. If Indiana’s defense had been just a little bit better in several years in recent memory, Indiana’s dismal record in terms of going to bowl games would be very different. The thing I always point to when talking about this is think back to when Antwaan Randle El was roaming the sidelines at IU. He was arguably, at that time, one of the most exciting players in college football. He played multiple positions. He was primarily a quarterback (except for a one-game experiment at wide receiver against North Carolina State to open his senior year). But he also ran back kickoffs and punts, and even punted the ball from time to time, mostly out of the shotgun. But the thing that Randle El didn’t do was play defense and because of that, it didn’t matter how many points ARE would put up because the defense gave up more. To me it’s a travesty that Randle El never played in a college football bowl game. And so for me, the biggest question with the 2015 IU football team is on the defensive side of the ball and how this group will be in defensive coordinator Brian Knorr’s second season at IU and second year running the 3-4. Statistically speaking, IU made big strides under Knorr in his first year. They allowed six less points per game, 55 less rushing yards per game and 94 less total yards per game. Sounds good, right? Yes, except when you look back at where that defense was coming from in the final year under Doug Mallory. IU’s defense allowed a staggering 527.9 yards of offense per game in 2013 and the Hoosiers still somehow won five games. So it’s nice to think about what guys like Sudfeld and Howard will potentially be able to do in the offense but unless the defense can stop somebody it will all once again be a moot point. Indiana's ability to win at least six games will likely fall on the defensive side of the ball more than anything else.

4. SPECIFICALLY ON DEFENSE, HOW WILL THE SECONDARY SHAPE UP?: For the most part all of the starters in the secondary from a year ago are gone either through graduation, transfers or dismissal in the case of Antonio Allen. Chase Dutra started one game at strong safety against Maryland but that is IU’s lone returning start. Dutra did play a lot toward the end of the year though just not in a starting role. Tim Bennett and Mark Murphy graduated, and Michael Hunter graduated early and then transferred to Oklahoma State in the spring. He had started 24 consecutive games at IU. Kevin Wilson said that Dutra will definitely be one of the leaders in the secondary but that beyond that IU will be playing a lot of young guys. The Hoosiers have four guys in the 2015 class that were signed in the secondary and there’s a chance that a few guys listed as athletes (Isaac James and Mike Majette) could end in the secondary, too. The reality is that IU is going to be young back there and that’s not always a good thing. It will definitely be an area to keep a close eye on.

5. WITH THE J-SHUN HARRIS INJURY, WHO WILL STEP UP AT THE WIDE RECEIVER POSITION?: The good news is there are a lot of solid prospects. The bad news is that for the most part that’s what they are: unproven prospects. First off, the veterans need to be good. Guys like Ricky Jones and Simmie Cobbs, or Andre Booker and Dominique Booth. From that group, IU needs a few guys to separate themselves. And beyond that, IU has a ton of good freshmen who may or may not be redshirted in their first seasons in Bloomington. Conventional wisdom has it that at least a few of those guys may need to be pressed into service. Players like Leon Thornton, Nick Westbrook or Camion Patrick. And then there’s Marqui Hawkins, the other transfer from UAB. Hawkins broke his wrist in the spring and was limited in what he could do. But Wilson said last week that he had a good summer and so there is some optimism that he’ll be able to contribute. Basically, it comes down to there being a lot of possibilities and prospects but now we’ll have to see which ones emerge as players.

Those are five key questions for me heading into the 2015 season. I’m sure you have others and I’d invite you to throw them out in the comments section at the end of this article and give us more things to ask of Wilson and his staff in the first few weeks of camp.

I always invite feedback. I look forward to it actually. As hopefully you've seen in some of my early posts, I also have a strong belief that if you take time to make a comment that I should take the time to give you a response if one is warranted. To me, that's a successful formula for making a community even stronger. I look forward to your comments today.

@IndySportsHutch