Game Thread - Outback Bowl vs Ole Miss Sat 1/2/21 12:30pm ABC

[Naturalhoosier]

12 minutes ago, Aaron said:

Oh I remember the 90's well. That's why I said a 'decade ago in college and further back as a kid'. I followed team closely since 96 when I was 10  and grew up in Bloomington and dad took me to a couple games a yr. Outside of Randle El, Williams and a couple receivers like Mercy Gadis and Jerry Dorsey we did not field a Big Ten level team. That's why I also said 'outside of skill positions'. 

Of course!  Silly me. Thanks for setting me straight. 

[Hovadipo]

9 minutes ago, Naturalhoosier said:

Of course!  Silly me. Thanks for setting me straight. 

If you need to be set straight, Aaron is your guy. 

[Josh]

That was a really fun game to attend.  The crowd was overwhelmingly pro IU, which I'm sure the bowl organizers noticed.  That can only help us moving forward.

We got no pressure on their qb, we made a couple stupid plays (taking a knee on the blocked kick, not throwing the ball away at the end), but we were damn close with an inexperienced backup quarterback.

I'm proud of this team and this season.  We just went to two straight big time bowl games...the breakthrough is about to happen.

Good season fellas

[maharkn]

A bright spot for me is Charles Campbell. Has a really strong leg for a sophomore.

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[maharkn]

That was a really fun game to attend.  The crowd was overwhelmingly pro IU, which I'm sure the bowl organizers noticed.  That can only help us moving forward.
We got no pressure on their qb, we made a couple stupid plays (taking a knee on the blocked kick, not throwing the ball away at the end), but we were damn close with an inexperienced backup quarterback.
I'm proud of this team and this season.  We just went to two straight big time bowl games...the breakthrough is about to happen.
Good season fellas

It surprised me that most of the time we were only sending 3 or 4 because that is not how the defense played all year

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[Banksyrules]

Welp I took a long hard walk because frankly I got really depressed about the game. 

My analysis is that I’m very happy with the state of the program, simply because we never had a good to great football team in my almost 50 years of existence.

In our two biggest games we lost not from being overwhelmed from the opposition’s talent but because we were just nervous and chocked at the big moment . 

 

The coaches, the players, they all looked nervous and were not themselves.  The lack of good tackling even though we were in good position to stop them, the lack of running plays mixed in the offense to provide balance, it was just nerves.  

From the player front that will change if we can recruit a few four star athletes who can handle that pressure (I’m generalizing) a bit better. 

It’s also a test for Coach Allen to see if he can take the next big step in his coaching career. If he doesn’t then we’ll probably be a top 25-16 team consistently ( which is still awesome and I think we all agree we can live with that). But if he does.... phew that will be a sight to see.  

Anyway I’m going to mope a bit more and call it a day. It’s very encouraging to see that we’re in the 29th page of a topic for football game. It means that we care, and that we are miles ahead then we ever were. 

[Hovadipo]

19 minutes ago, maharkn said:

It surprised me that most of the time we were only sending 3 or 4 because that is not how the defense played all year

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You can’t against that offense. Corral would’ve gone for 600 if you don’t drop at least 7. Kiffin’s offense is just so so good. 

[Alford Bailey]

Disappointing to say the least. Hopefully next season is somewhat normal and we prove we werent just the beneficiary  of an asterisk Covid season.

[Bobman1]

Damn. Today was weird, it was like watching a totally different IU team than the one we’ve watched all season. I don’t feel that we controlled the trenches very well (especially on defense), our secondary had numerous lapses leaving receivers stupidly open, we dropped silly passes and didn’t make unbelievable grabs, and we didn’t have much success with passing the ball downfield.

Those were all aspects that I feel like we excelled in all season which is why I felt today’s team was unrecognizable at times. I was also upset to see the team that felt so disrespected all month and all season come out as the team that arguably didn’t want it more and seemed less urgent. A frankly depressing end to an otherwise unbelievable season, and there’s no gimmick or fluke play that costed us the win either this year.


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[Bobman1]

Welp I took a long hard walk because frankly I got really depressed about the game. 
My analysis is that I’m very happy with the state of the program, simply because we never had a good to great football team in my almost 50 years of existence.
In our two biggest games we lost not from being overwhelmed from the opposition’s talent but because we were just nervous and chocked at the big moment . 
 
The coaches, the players, they all looked nervous and were not themselves.  The lack of good tackling even though we were in good position to stop them, the lack of running plays mixed in the offense to provide balance, it was just nerves.  
From the player front that will change if we can recruit a few four star athletes who can handle that pressure (I’m generalizing) a bit better. 
It’s also a test for Coach Allen to see if he can take the next big step in his coaching career. If he doesn’t then we’ll probably be a top 25-16 team consistently ( which is still awesome and I think we all agree we can live with that). But if he does.... phew that will be a sight to see.  
Anyway I’m going to mope a bit more and call it a day. It’s very encouraging to see that we’re in the 29th page of a topic for football game. It means that we care, and that we are miles ahead then we ever were. 

Felt very similar I imagine after the game. I just shared a similar post and forgot to mention the tackling deficiencies today. So many times it felt like Ole Miss was getting consistently 3-4 more yards on a play than they otherwise should have.

Good point.


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[cthomas]

The big picture is this, you can't skip steps on the way up. We just have to take the next one. We can talk about player development all we want, but sometimes you still have to start with better players. It will start with signing better guys. IF this season translates into that, then we are on our way. Regardless of their record, I'm guessing that their last four recruiting classes were better than ours. Eventually, we have to go into games with the better rated players. LEO to me is a gimmick designed to get players to play above their talent level. I'm not saying that the sentiment is not real or that Allen does not truly care about his guys, but total buy in is the only way he can compete against superior talent. I like what coach Allen is doing and I hope it buys him enough time to get the talent he needs.

[Alford Bailey]

6 minutes ago, cthomas said:

The big picture is this, you can't skip steps on the way up. We just have to take the next one. We can talk about player development all we want, but sometimes you still have to start with better players. It will start with signing better guys. IF this season translates into that, then we are on our way. Regardless of their record, I'm guessing that their last four recruiting classes were better than ours. Eventually, we have to go into games with the better rated players. LEO to me is a gimmick designed to get players to play above their talent level. I'm not saying that the sentiment is not real or that Allen does not truly care about his guys, but total buy in is the only way he can compete against superior talent. I like what coach Allen is doing and I hope it buys him enough time to get the talent he needs.

Which begs the question how did we beat teams with better players ( or almost beat in the case of OSU) during the season? Ole Miss played without some of their best players on offense.

[cthomas]

7 minutes ago, Alford Bailey said:

Which begs the question how did we beat teams with better players ( or almost beat in the case of OSU) during the season? Ole Miss played without some of their best players on offense.

Happens all the time. I think OSU overlooked us to an extent and Fields was trying to make a case for the Heismen and tried make plays that weren't there. We are good enough now that it is foolish to think we are an easy win. But we are not good enough to expect that we will win every time out. I'm guessing that opposing fan bases look at the schedule and put the game against us in the win column. We can only change that by stacking good seasons on top of each other.

[NashvilleHoosier]

28 minutes ago, cthomas said:

The big picture is this, you can't skip steps on the way up. We just have to take the next one. We can talk about player development all we want, but sometimes you still have to start with better players. It will start with signing better guys. IF this season translates into that, then we are on our way. Regardless of their record, I'm guessing that their last four recruiting classes were better than ours. Eventually, we have to go into games with the better rated players. LEO to me is a gimmick designed to get players to play above their talent level. I'm not saying that the sentiment is not real or that Allen does not truly care about his guys, but total buy in is the only way he can compete against superior talent. I like what coach Allen is doing and I hope it buys him enough time to get the talent he needs.

This seems a bit contradictory. I get what you’re saying but Off the top of my head...penn st, Michigan, Michigan st, Wisconsin...all of them likely had their last 4 recruiting classes ranked higher than ours. We didn’t need better players to win today. Better players across the board will be needed to sustain a high level of success. But this team was fully capable, and should have won today with the players we have. We choked. 
 

I don’t really get the LEO gimmick comment. Programs are built on culture, something we’ve gone from not having in a very long time, to something so good that it gets talked about nationally and many programs would kill for. And isn’t getting players to buy in and perform at a higher level....coaching? I don’t think it’s gimmicky at all.

[Alford Bailey]

2 hours ago, Treesh said:

We win today with Peyton

Ramsey had a hell of a game against an Auburn team minus a coach but extremely talented.

[NashvilleHoosier]

51 minutes ago, Banksyrules said:

Welp I took a long hard walk because frankly I got really depressed about the game.

I aimlessly picked up dog poo in the backyard for about 40 minutes. I don’t know why. Maybe my kids said they wanted to play out there, but they didn’t. Feel like I found about 3 years worth of poo. It’s pretty cold here today. I was only wearing a t-shirt. I guess what I’m saying is, I hear ya buddy. Here’s to drinking it off.

[cthomas]

11 minutes ago, NashvilleHoosier said:

This seems a bit contradictory. I get what you’re saying but Off the top of my head...penn st, Michigan, Michigan st, Wisconsin...all of them likely had their last 4 recruiting classes ranked higher than ours. We didn’t need better players to win today. Better players across the board will be needed to sustain a high level of success. But this team was fully capable, and should have won today with the players we have. We choked. 
 

I don’t really get the LEO gimmick comment. Programs are built on culture, something we’ve gone from not having in a very long time, to something so good that it gets talked about nationally and many programs would kill for. And isn’t getting players to buy in and perform at a higher level....coaching? I don’t think it’s gimmicky at all.

OK. Gimmick was probably the wrong word there. The point was it is something that leads to guys playing above their rating. But for me, the bottom line is more often than not where you end up will be determined by your talent level. I'm not being negative here, I love this team and think it is very similar to the '67 Rose Bowl team in terms of achievement. But we couldn't follow up on that success. Getting better players is how we will climb the ladder. We can't expect that we will beat the Michigan's and Penn State's year in and year out without recruiting at their level. To think otherwise is to live in a fantasy land. I've been watching since the late '50s and it's just the way it is. Please don't think I'm discounting what you said because we have over achieved this year in my opinion. I love what Coach Allen is building and I hope we give him time to finish the job.

[LamarCheeks]

Egads. I just made the mistake of looking at the Big Ten's Facebook page. Holy crap -- are we getting roasted. And to be honest, we had it coming. We pissed and moaned about the league walking back its six-game rule and picking O$U for the title game. We fussed when the CFP committee kept us out of a NY6 bowl. We bitched about the B1G pushing Northwestern over us for the Citrus, and even had our former AD roasting the B1.0 in a tweet. Then we pulled the stunt with removing the conference logo from our unis -- or covering it up, whichever it was. We did all that, and then ... went out and crapped our pants on the field. Can't make that much of a stink about things, then perform like that. 

That's why I felt all along this game was a no-win situation. The only way we gain any cachet would've been to win by three TDs or so. 

Can't figure which was more upsetting: this, or having Bob Knight finally return to AH after all those years away and all that bitterness -- only to let the goddamn Purdue Toiletmakers walk all  over us. 

[Alford Bailey]

27 minutes ago, LamarCheeks said:

Egads. I just made the mistake of looking at the Big Ten's Facebook page. Holy crap -- are we getting roasted. And to be honest, we had it coming. We pissed and moaned about the league walking back its six-game rule and picking O$U for the title game. We fussed when the CFP committee kept us out of a NY6 bowl. We bitched about the B1G pushing Northwestern over us for the Citrus, and even had our former AD roasting the B1.0 in a tweet. Then we pulled the stunt with removing the conference logo from our unis -- or covering it up, whichever it was. We did all that, and then ... went out and crapped our pants on the field. Can't make that much of a stink about things, then perform like that. 

That's why I felt all along this game was a no-win situation. The only way we gain any cachet would've been to win by three TDs or so. 

Can't figure which was more upsetting: this, or having Bob Knight finally return to AH after all those years away and all that bitterness -- only to let the goddamn Purdue Toiletmakers walk all  over us. 

Allen and Co reverted to IU football of last year. We must have this type of season in a "normal" year to earn respect.

[Alford Bailey]

We give up 342 yards passing to Ole Miss who were without their top 3 receivers and Whop has 18 catches for a total of 81 yards? A couple of odd stats from this game.