About Last Week Pretty sure there wasn’t a game last week. The Road Ahead Indiana (2-6, 0-5 B1G) Last week: Lost at Maryland, 38-35 Recap: Indiana allowed 419 passing yards at 10.5 yards per pass. That’s a lot. Let’s look at the film to see if we can identify the issues:
Hmmm…
/scribbles notes
I see. It appears Indiana dusted off the “maybe Jeremy Gallon will drop the next one” defensive playbook. It’s hard to see where the bottom might be on this season. Indiana’s streak of two straight winning seasons — the longest such streak since 1993-1994 — is over, as is Indiana’s streak of two straight bowl appearances. Forget about those. The Hoosiers’ six straight seasons with at least 5 wins is in serious jeopardy. They’ve still got Rutgers on the schedule, but beyond that, it’s hard to see them winning more than one more from the group of @ Michigan, vs. Minnesota, and @ Purdue. This team is as frightening as: Bill Lynch Indiana. Fear Level = 3 Michigan can sleep soundly about: Indiana is starting Donaven McCulley at quarterback, a true freshman who will be making his second career start. Michigan should worry about: McCulley played unexpectedly well, albeit with expectations somewhere in the “we gon’ die” range; he completed 14 of 25 passes for 242 yards (9.7 YPA) with 2 TDs and no turnovers. That said, his production did not appear particularly repeatable. His longest pass of the day (52 yards to Ty Fryfogel) should have been an interception, and most of his other significant gains were from hitting blitheringly wide open guys on coverage busts. And if I had to decide between “Nick Sheridan schemed up beautiful route combinations to get guys open” and “Maryland did a Maryland,” I’mma put my money on the latter. When they play Michigan: A night game. In November. Against a 2-6 team starting a third string QB. Next game: @ Michigan, 7:30 p.m., FOX (IU +19) [After the JUMP: It's late, but at least it's not good.]