Indiana football turned in a mostly solid defensive performance in its season-opening win over Old Dominion.
The Hoosiers made three interceptions, and the Monarchs got past midfield only three times all game.
But the way ODU crossed the 50-yard-line at the beginning and end of the game became the biggest thing — positive or negative — that stood out for IU’s defense last week. Old Dominion quarterback Colton Joseph broke off a 75-yard touchdown run on the game’s first offensive play, and he scampered 78 yards to the house on ODU’s final offensive play of the day.
“First play of the game was a 30 read for our linebacker. It was an outside zone read. We’re not going to block the weak side defensive tackle. The guard blocked him, which meant it looked like outside zone and then came off late and quarterback. So the linebacker went. Quarterback pulled the ball. There’s nobody left,” head coach Curt Cignetti said on Monday. “But the last third down and 1, that’s just an egregious missed assignment by the field end who has the quarterback and took the dive.”
The linebacker Cignetti referenced was Rolijah Hardy, and the field end was Kellan Wyatt.
Like Cignetti said, the film shows Hardy reacting to the play design that looked like an outside zone run, and there wasn’t much he could do when Joseph pulled the ball back. That’s part of what made Joseph such a threat running the ball — it wasn’t only his speed and reading the defense, but also the way he pulled the ball away so late on option plays made it difficult on IU’s defenders.
The film also does show Wyatt’s mistake on the second touchdown run. There was no blocking scheme for him to read like Hardy had; he was supposed to stay on the quarterback, regardless of the play. But the Maryland transfer bit on the fake handoff inside, and that opened up the lane Joseph needed.
“Just being more disciplined, everybody on the same page,” safety Amare Ferrell said after the game Saturday, “everybody doing their job, which would eliminate those big plays.”
Those two plays won’t have much impact on Indiana’s season, as a whole. They were two moments of the opponent just making things very hard on IU, and an individual mistake — not necessarily a developing team weakness.
Now that the Hoosiers have played a game this season against that sort of quarterback, they should be more prepared going forward.
“I feel like as far as QB runs, we don’t see that a lot. I feel like that’s hard to mimic in practice,” cornerback D’Angelo Ponds said on Tuesday. “So now that we’ve seen it, it’ll be easier to fix.”
Indiana will see plenty of mobile quarterbacks this season, so it’s something the defense has to improve at. The Hoosiers see another one this Saturday, when former IU player Dexter Williams II runs Kennesaw State’s offense at Memorial Stadium. Williams is a similar player to what he was in Bloomington: a raw passer, but a twitchy athlete who can make things happen on the ground.
Cignetti is fully aware of the threat Williams could cause. And if IU doesn’t adjust after the Old Dominion game and has similar breakdowns leading to long quarterback runs, that could become a bigger problem.
“He’s a good athlete, he’s elusive, and they have designed quarterback runs,” Cignetti said of Williams on his radio show Thursday evening in Bloomington. “He’s got a strong arm. Now they were 12 for 33 passing the ball against Wake Forest, so there were some misses in there. But he can definitely be a nuisance.”
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