IUFB vs North Texas - 09.05.26 @ noon on Fox TV GAME THREAD

[Stuhoo]

Whoever had Cam McHaney getting as many d-line snaps as Chidi Obiazor has a damn fine crystal ball.

[Loaded Chicken Sandwich]

Defense will be a work in progress and will have games to use to improve before then. Northwestern will be an interesting game(Chiles always starts the game off pretty well against us). Rutgers sucks but Duff is a legitimate star who will give a great challenge to our weakened secondary and Nebraska will be decent enough. hopefully get things fixed before Jeremiah Smith comes to town. 

I don't think they went to crazy on offensive sets or even defensive looks. Only had 1 sack on the day and 7 tackles for loss. 

RBs are... Okay. Not impressed whatsoever with Beebee(which I didn't care for him last year to begin the season). Not having Martin is going to hurt. Turbo and Beebee don't have the vision or explosiveness to hit the right holes which was seen multiple times on Saturday as they just pulled Trent Richardsons and ran into pile sof bodies. 

Sad Marsh didn't get more targets.

Charlie B is still a monster.

Offense as a whole didn't get much due to several short fields but Hoover throwing for 4 TDs would great. Was some top notch aura watching him throw a TD to Charlie B while bleeding all over the place. 

[Class of '66 Old Fart]

I'm not overly concerned about our defense after this game.  Cig only had them actually tackle in the spring game which is his customary way of coaching.  

[Stuhoo]

51 minutes ago, Loaded Chicken Sandwich said:

Defense will be a work in progress and will have games to use to improve before then. Northwestern will be an interesting game(Chiles always starts the game off pretty well against us). Rutgers sucks but Duff is a legitimate star who will give a great challenge to our weakened secondary and Nebraska will be decent enough. hopefully get things fixed before Jeremiah Smith comes to town. 

I don't think they went to crazy on offensive sets or even defensive looks. Only had 1 sack on the day and 7 tackles for loss. 

RBs are... Okay. Not impressed whatsoever with Beebee(which I didn't care for him last year to begin the season). Not having Martin is going to hurt. Turbo and Beebee don't have the vision or explosiveness to hit the right holes which was seen multiple times on Saturday as they just pulled Trent Richardsons and ran into pile sof bodies. 

Sad Marsh didn't get more targets.

Charlie B is still a monster.

Offense as a whole didn't get much due to several short fields but Hoover throwing for 4 TDs would great. Was some top notch aura watching him throw a TD to Charlie B while bleeding all over the place. 

When everything doesn’t flow perfectly after one game and we won 52-16 I’m thinking we might be okay.

The one guy who I saw looking mediocre was Chidi Obiazor.

[dfwhoosier]

Glass half full: IU started slow last year too. And this year we had a much bigger margin of victory

Glass half empty: last year we outgained ODU by 200 yards and they only crossed midfield twice on 2 fluke plays. This year UNT outgained us (!)

Glass half full again: Still, like others have said, the defense will almost certainly improve. They'll get more reps tackling, and Haines will help find their identity after losing Aiden Fischer. The OL always takes time to gel after losing a key guy (like Coogan). RBs look like the biggest weakness on the team, especially after losing Khobie, but Turbo gained 100+ yards against 5 different Power 4 teams last year. Fingers crossed he finds that form again

[Hoosier987]

2 hours ago, Loaded Chicken Sandwich said:

Defense will be a work in progress and will have games to use to improve before then. Northwestern will be an interesting game(Chiles always starts the game off pretty well against us). Rutgers sucks but Duff is a legitimate star who will give a great challenge to our weakened secondary and Nebraska will be decent enough. hopefully get things fixed before Jeremiah Smith comes to town. 

Games

 

I don't think they went to crazy on offensive sets or even defensive looks. Only had 1 sack on the day and 7 tackles for loss. 

RBs are... Okay. Not impressed whatsoever with Beebee(which I didn't care for him last year to begin the season). Not having Martin is going to hurt. Turbo and Beebee don't have the vision or explosiveness to hit the right holes which was seen multiple times on Saturday as they just pulled Trent Richardsons and ran into pile sof bodies. 

Sad Marsh didn't get more targets.

Charlie B is still a monster.

Offense as a whole didn't get much due to several short fields but Hoover throwing for 4 TDs would great. Was some top notch aura watching him throw a TD to Charlie B while bleeding all over the place. 

Did the offense as a whole really perform that poorly? We scored on 8 of 9 possessions and put up 52 points on 46 snaps. That’s incredibly efficient—more than a point per play.

North Texas also did a good job of keeping our offense off the field. Imagine if we had closer to 65 snaps. We probably score 70+ points.

As for the running back room, I think you’re being a little too critical based on one game. Beebe Jr. was well on his way to a 1,000-yard rushing season last year before getting hurt. He had over 209 yards on just 27 carries before the injury. Was his yards-per-carry average impressive Saturday? No. But let’s not forget that he had a nearly 50-yard run called back on what was, quite frankly, a questionable holding call on Lynch. That run showed great vision and explosiveness, and including it would have made his numbers look much better.

He also returned the opening kickoff nearly 70 yards, immediately showing his explosiveness and helping set the stage for Marsh’s first touchdown catch.

As for Turbo, he simply grinded it out. He finished with 96 all-purpose yards, including two goal-line touchdowns. He also had over 1,000 all-purpose yards at Boston College last year, arguably the worst team in the ACC. I think he’s going to be a great addition to this team.

Obviously, Khobie’s injury is unfortunate. Hopefully, he can return in time for the meat of our schedule, or at least the final few games. I’m not sure who the fourth running back will be, but whoever it is should get some valuable snaps while Martin is out. I’ve heard Cuono may be the guy, but I’ve also read that we have an impressive freshman who could see some action.

One other thing to consider with the running game: North Texas was stacking the box and playing heavily against the run. That left them vulnerable in the passing game. Against this offense, it’s essentially pick your poison. Try to stop the run, and we’ll throw it. Try to stop the pass, and we’ll run it. I think this offense is going to be excellent.

As for the defense, there wasn’t much to be satisfied with. Haines kept things pretty vanilla, which was probably intentional, but we also had multiple missed tackles that were disappointing. I trust the coaching staff to clean that up, though, and I wouldn’t get too down on the defense after one game.

We have an incredible amount of talent and a lot of returning players—Hardy, Jones, Tucker, Landino, Ferrell, Sharpe, Daley, and Wyatt, just to name a few. From all accounts, Osunsami is going to be a beast, and Burnham should be a very good player for us. In short, there is simply too much talent on this defense to be overly concerned after one game against a brand-new opponent with limited to no film.

All in all, I’d give the team a B for Saturday’s performance. There’s certainly plenty to improve, especially on the defensive side, but I trust the coaching staff and the players.

Let’s also not forget what we saw the last time this team took the field: an incredibly efficient, high-level performance in the National Championship. It will take some time and a few games to get back to that level, but I’m confident we can get there.

And finally, some perspective: we beat ODU by 13 points last year—a team that was fairly comparable to North Texas in terms of talent—and we beat North Texas by 36 points this year. That’s a pretty significant difference between the first game of last season and the first game of this season.

There’s plenty to clean up, but I think the overall outlook is very positive.

[Brass Cannon]

 

[Hoosier987]

8 minutes ago, dfwhoosier said:

Glass half full: IU started slow last year too. And this year we had a much bigger margin of victory

Glass half empty: last year we outgained ODU by 200 yards and they only crossed midfield twice on 2 fluke plays. This year UNT outgained us (!)

Glass half full again: Still, like others have said, the defense will almost certainly improve. They'll get more reps tackling, and Haines will help find their identity after losing Aiden Fischer. The OL always takes time to gel after losing a key guy (like Coogan). RBs look like the biggest weakness on the team, especially after losing Khobie, but Turbo gained 100+ yards against 5 different Power 4 teams last year. Fingers crossed he finds that form again

North Texas was stacking the box to slow down our running game. 

[Brass Cannon]

The one punt was the result a blatantly ignored pass interference as well. Offense was great 

[Brass Cannon]

 

[Hoosier987]

12 minutes ago, Brass Cannon said:

 

Excellent news. Martin will be back by meat of our schedule. 

[Brass Cannon]

Just now, Hoosier987 said:

Excellent news. Martin will be back by meat of our schedule. 

Yep just keep the other backs fresh.  Till October 17th.  Then probably only need 21 points against this Michigan team.

[Stuhoo]

28 minutes ago, Brass Cannon said:

 

Arm fracture for a football player is a six-eight week recovery.

[Stuhoo]

Two major injury takeaways from the week one lineup:

McHaney played because Blake Smythe was out (and will be back very soon). Smythe is the fourth interior d lineman, after Squeak, Mario, and Hjelle.

Gibbs may be back this week. I’m still of the belief that when he gets healthy he will be our starting tight end.

[IU5355]

2 minutes ago, Stuhoo said:

Two major injury takeaways from the week one lineup:

McHaney played because Blake Smythe was out (and will be back very soon). Smythe is the fourth interior d lineman, after Squeak, Mario, and Hjelle.

Gibbs may be back this week. I’m still of the belief that when he gets healthy he will be our starting tight end.

Its bizarre how similarly built Gibbs is to Nowakowski. He doesnt look like a freshman. 

Cig has been very high on him.

 

[Brass Cannon]

5 minutes ago, IU5355 said:

Its bizarre how similarly built Gibbs is to Nowakowski. He doesnt look like a freshman. 

Cig has been very high on him.

 

Could be for sure. But that was definitely a man’s catch Brock had. 

[mamasa]

My friend and coworker was at the game, non-student area. I texted “I’ll bet it’s just nuts!”. He said (and he’s a huge IU guy) “Honestly, it’s more of a wine and cheese crowd. It’s like they expect to win by 70 and are here to say they were here and to work on their tans.” Guess Cig needs all the alumni/new fans’ emails to motivate them!

[str8baller]

6 hours ago, dfwhoosier said:

Glass half empty: last year we outgained ODU by 200 yards and they only crossed midfield twice on 2 fluke plays. This year UNT outgained us (!)

They were massively out talented but did a nice job stringing together drives against our defense. Maybe good coaching? Maybe Jackson is really good? Either way, there is plenty to clean up on that side of the ball. 

[Loaded Chicken Sandwich]

6 hours ago, Hoosier987 said:

Did the offense as a whole really perform that poorly? We scored on 8 of 9 possessions and put up 52 points on 46 snaps. That’s incredibly efficient—more than a point per play.

North Texas also did a good job of keeping our offense off the field. Imagine if we had closer to 65 snaps. We probably score 70+ points.

As for the running back room, I think you’re being a little too critical based on one game. Beebe Jr. was well on his way to a 1,000-yard rushing season last year before getting hurt. He had over 209 yards on just 27 carries before the injury. Was his yards-per-carry average impressive Saturday? No. But let’s not forget that he had a nearly 50-yard run called back on what was, quite frankly, a questionable holding call on Lynch. That run showed great vision and explosiveness, and including it would have made his numbers look much better.

He also returned the opening kickoff nearly 70 yards, immediately showing his explosiveness and helping set the stage for Marsh’s first touchdown catch.

As for Turbo, he simply grinded it out. He finished with 96 all-purpose yards, including two goal-line touchdowns. He also had over 1,000 all-purpose yards at Boston College last year, arguably the worst team in the ACC. I think he’s going to be a great addition to this team.

Obviously, Khobie’s injury is unfortunate. Hopefully, he can return in time for the meat of our schedule, or at least the final few games. I’m not sure who the fourth running back will be, but whoever it is should get some valuable snaps while Martin is out. I’ve heard Cuono may be the guy, but I’ve also read that we have an impressive freshman who could see some action.

One other thing to consider with the running game: North Texas was stacking the box and playing heavily against the run. That left them vulnerable in the passing game. Against this offense, it’s essentially pick your poison. Try to stop the run, and we’ll throw it. Try to stop the pass, and we’ll run it. I think this offense is going to be excellent.

As for the defense, there wasn’t much to be satisfied with. Haines kept things pretty vanilla, which was probably intentional, but we also had multiple missed tackles that were disappointing. I trust the coaching staff to clean that up, though, and I wouldn’t get too down on the defense after one game.

We have an incredible amount of talent and a lot of returning players—Hardy, Jones, Tucker, Landino, Ferrell, Sharpe, Daley, and Wyatt, just to name a few. From all accounts, Osunsami is going to be a beast, and Burnham should be a very good player for us. In short, there is simply too much talent on this defense to be overly concerned after one game against a brand-new opponent with limited to no film.

All in all, I’d give the team a B for Saturday’s performance. There’s certainly plenty to improve, especially on the defensive side, but I trust the coaching staff and the players.

Let’s also not forget what we saw the last time this team took the field: an incredibly efficient, high-level performance in the National Championship. It will take some time and a few games to get back to that level, but I’m confident we can get there.

And finally, some perspective: we beat ODU by 13 points last year—a team that was fairly comparable to North Texas in terms of talent—and we beat North Texas by 36 points this year. That’s a pretty significant difference between the first game of last season and the first game of this season.

There’s plenty to clean up, but I think the overall outlook is very positive.

I still wasn't impressed at all by our RBs. Not really any illusiveness or explosion through holes or ability to cut to an non predetermined hole. Both remind me a ton of Redding. Did he rush for 1000 one year? Yea. Was he actually any good? Not really. I mean both are probably better than him. Beebee probably just a tick above him at best. Neither are elite RBs. That is what hurts so much with Martin out. He legitimately has star written all over him. Size, speed, strength, vision. There holes that Turbo/Beebee couldn't hit that Martin would have shifted and blasted through them. 

I'm not super super worried about the defense. I think everyone knew the secondary was going to be the weak link without Ponds. Dudes like that don't grow on trees and come to Indiana(yet). Hopefully get healthy and see a lot of aggressiveness and actions to get in the backfield.

[skhoosier2]

Defense to me was more concerning than offense and really it was all the missed tackles I saw. Haines will get it fixed and by the time we see Nebraska (who I think being on the road will test us slightly) we should be rounding into form. I will say my concerns in the secondary going into this season are valid. We will be missing ponds severely not to mention Moore Boykin and Fishers leadership/smarts on defense. Again hopefully by Nebraska we see some drastic improvement. 
 

Offense I think we will be lethal. 3 great WR options plus Chandler is going to be hard for any defense to cover. Then you have turbo out of the backfield catching passes which I’ll say is a plus without a Riley at TE this season for those TE screens or even seam passes down the middle. Running backs take a hit without Khobie for now but what this does is hopefully give the backs behind Khobie some time. I don’t think the offensive line played particularly well in run or pass blocking. They will need to be much much better come B1G play. The running backs may not have looked the way we expected game 1 but I’m sure that will also look much different as we enter B1G play and especially by OSU. 
 

Special teams was excellent. Got to be careful with lee and Tyler returning as we can really not afford to lose either. 

Was not impressed with many teams in B1G save for OSU possibly USC. Oregon will be better but i don’t see that team beating osu at home. Michigan and Washington left me unimpressed at this stage. Washington likely improves a lot. Michigan is a hot mess and I won’t be surprised if we see Carr soon. 
Onward to week 2.