Who is starting at quarterback for Indiana on Saturday against USC?
We still don’t know for sure.
As IU coach Curt Cignetti said Monday, “we’ll see who trots out there.”
The trotting begins during pregame warmups in the hour leading up to the game, and the starters typically work together at times. So we should have a good idea ahead of kickoff.
While we’ll have to wait until Saturday to be sure, there have been some subtle clues that allow for some conjecture a couple days out from the top-20 matchup in Bloomington (3:30 p.m./CBS)
The question comes down to Josh Hoover, who has started every game this season, and Grant Wilson, who was substituted in for Hoover in the second half of IU’s last game against Minnesota on Oct. 31.
Hoover was injured against Ohio State on Oct. 17. While he’s been able to play through that undisclosed injury that appears to be related to his throwing arm, Hoover’s effectiveness has been on the decline since. He also took a big hit in the first half against Minnesota, which may have also contributed to the halftime change.
Hoover has completed 60.2% of his throws this season, with 19 TDs and 2 INTs.
Wilson completed 9 of 17 passes against the Golden Gophers, and he ran effectively. He led IU to scores on its final three drives to seal a come-from-behind overtime win.
The plan going into last week’s bye was to rest Josh Hoover. That would have set up perfectly for Wilson to get a week of work in as the No. 1 quarterback.
But that didn’t happen.
“Grant Wilson actually had the flu last week and couldn’t practice,” Cignetti said this week on his radio show. “And Josh, the plan was to rest him the whole time.”
With both Wilson and Hoover unavailable, IU turned to the No. 3 and 4 quarterbacks on the depth chart to run the offense during the off week. Tyler Cherry and Jacob Bell took the snaps.
Cignetti says he was impressed with his second-year fourth-stringer.
“I was really pleased with how Jacob Bell really practiced last week,” Cignetti said. “Because he hadn’t gotten a lot of reps since he’s been here. As a true freshman he was running the scout team, and then he got limited reps in the spring and fall camp. He went in there and really did a fine job. He’s got a real rocket for an arm.”
So where do things stand for Saturday against USC?
Again, we won’t know for sure until Saturday. But there have been clues, starting with Wilson missing last week.
Moreover, Hoover wasn’t on this week’s initial availability report released on Wednesday evening. So the current expectation is he’s available barring any late week setbacks.
Additionally, Hoover appeared on the IU football radio show Wednesday as a guest. It seems reasonable to at least wonder if Hoover would have been asked to do that if he had been recently told he was being demoted to backup in the final weeks of his college career. Again, pure conjecture, but also difficult to ignore.
There was also a major move on the point spread for the Indiana-USC game, as the Hoosiers went from seven to eleven point favorites in around 30 minutes Wednesday afternoon. That had some speculating a major injury on the USC side, but the availability report struck down the notion.
Perhaps it was due to a clean bill of health for Hoover?
Most likely it was nothing more than a meaningless degenerate moment in the sports betting world.
We won’t be placing any bets on this situation, and instead waiting until Saturday afternoon to be sure.
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