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Indiana football depth chart settling into shape after several position battles
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- Indiana football depth chart settling into shape after several position battles
BLOOMINGTON — Indiana landed back home at the Monroe County Airport close to 4 a.m. Sunday, knowing the season's most difficult tests are now coming into view.
Fresh from a 47-15 steamrolling of Rutgers in New Jersey, the No. 5 Hoosiers now turn their attention to the business end of their schedule: trips to Nebraska and Michigan, sandwiched around the much-anticipated Big Ten championship game rematch against Ohio State. Curt Cignetti 's team will round off with a Halloween homecoming date against mercurial Minnesota before finally reaching its bye in early November.
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The time for tinkering and experimentation is mostly done. What Indiana (5-0, 2-0 Big Ten) is by now will have to be good enough to navigate a gauntlet that should determine the course of this season, for better or worse. Which is why Cignetti will be encouraged by the clarity his staff has gained at key positions, on both sides of the ball.
With the thick of the October slate coming up, let's look at some positions that appear to have settled — and at least one that still needs work.
Running back
This got solved by necessity, not by choice, after Khobie Martin's arm fracture early in the Week 1 win over North Texas. But boy has it worked out for the Hoosiers in the meantime.
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Turbo Richard (587 yards, five TDs, 9.3 ypc) and Lee Beebe Jr. (520 yards, four TDs, 5.8 ypc) anchor one of the most explosive rushing offenses not just in the Big Ten, but in the country. That was on full display Saturday night, when the Hoosiers posted 12 explosive rushing plays — rushes of 10-plus yards — and gained 339 sack-adjusted yards on the ground as a team.
Developments at the point of attack have helped (more on that in a minute). And what should alarm opponents is that Indiana still expects Martin back sometime in the next few weeks.
He will return to one of the best running back rooms in the country.
More: Indiana football RBs come through with 'gutsy' performance against Rutgers
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Tight end
It looks more and more like Trevor Gibbs' job to hold or hand over.
A freshman from Crown Point, Gibbs has long been identified by Cignetti as among his best blockers at the tight end position. It's starting to show.
Injured in the spring, Gibbs ramped up slowly this fall. He did not appear until Week 3 against Western Kentucky, his snap count increasing across the last three weeks from 18, to 26, to an eye-popping 53 Saturday night. In total, Gibbs was on the field for all but 13 offensive snaps in Piscataway.
Compare that to Andrew Barker, who had 34 snaps against Howard and 51 against Northwestern, but just 11 on Saturday. Or Brock Schott, the Miami transfer, whose playing time has been mostly consistent but never tremendous − he's gotten at least 21 snaps in four of IU's five games, but never more than 29.
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Look at those explosive rushing numbers again, then watch the film of the Rutgers win, and you'll see Trevor Gibbs' fingerprints all over them.
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Defensive end
All the preseason conversation about the edges of Indiana's defensive line got a twist when the Hoosiers were able to add Kellan Wyatt and Stephen Daley back to the roster, thanks to a series of legal rulings . Indiana might still need some judicial decisions to go their way to keep both players eligible through the end of the season, but their impact to this point is undeniable.
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Tied in alongside Kansas State transfer Tobi Osunsanmi, they give Bryant Haines considerable pass-rushing firepower.
Osunsanmi is tied atop the Big Ten's sack charts, with four, and his 8.5 tackles for loss are tops in the conference on their own. Despite building his snap count up as he got game sharp, from 13 vs. North Texas to 32 against Northwestern, and then 27 against Rutgers, Daley already has three sacks and four TFLs as well. Wyatt continues to pop on film, especially against the run.
Indiana will be eager to get more clarity on whatever injury held third-year end Daniel Ndukwe out of Saturday's win at Rutgers. He's probably the Hoosiers' fourth for two spots at that position, and had been playing meaningful and productive snaps before popping up unexpectedly on the injury report last week.
As long as IU has Wyatt and Daley healthy and eligible, though, this position is in great hands.
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More: Indiana football's Stephen Daley is back to doing what he does best
Cornerback
We should be careful not to overstate the Hoosiers' issues in coverage. They are not weak against the pass statistically, just not necessarily elite either. Week-to-week numbers can vary, but on a per-game basis, they're about middle of the road in stats like passing yards allowed per game, passing explosives allowed, and so forth.
What Indiana has struggled for in the secondary − and especially at corner − is consistency. First of bodies, and then of performances.
Injuries drove both Jamari Sharpe and AJ Harris, the Hoosiers' expected starters, from the Week 1 win over North Texas just minutes into the game. Jaylen Bell has stepped into a larger role as a result, while IU also decided to move Sharpe from the field side of the defense to the boundary. That's come with some growing pains for the fifth-year senior, unsurprising to Cignetti who described the boundary position recently as having "a few more nuances."
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The result has been a secondary that, like last season, is still seeing a few more coverage busts than it would probably like. The reasons are more of competitiveness at the point of catch, as opposed to last season's rough edges around communication. The eventual improvement needs to be the same.
Harris seems to be inching closer to a return, but Bell might have done enough to keep himself in his job for now. This is the the one area where it still feels like Indiana is looking for some long-term continuity.
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This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana football depth chart settling into shape after several position battles
