My Post Game Thoughts

[fkfootball]

I'll start with things I like.

1. Mike Penix. Hes the the QB recruit that we have needed for years. Man, he doesnt look like a Freshman. He has a great future.

2. Ramsey. Not the talent that Penix is, but hes a capable starter. I wish we had this version of Ramsey the last 2 seasons.

3. WRs. This is a nice group. Not real deep but they have some good players. Hale obviously, but Fryfogle does a nice job and could make some headway this year.

4. The Offensive line was decent. They did pretty well in pass blocking. Run blocking wasnt great, but they got better as the game wore on.

5. Mike Debord. This was a better game for him than the 12 I saw last year. Not ready to call him a savior, but he didnt do much to have me upset. Positive.

And the bad....

6. Tom Allen. What worries me most, is his dual role. He wont ever be as good of a HC or DC as long as he does both. Mark Hagen isnt going to be the answer. Kane Wommack is the guy. Hes had success as a lower level DC and his Dad is Dave Wommack. I'd give him a shot.

7. D-line. This is the worst position on the team. Outside of Sykes, I saw absolutely nothing from these guys. Robinson is a major disappointment. We have not recruited well here at all and we have lost the good DTs that we did recruit like Mullins, Major, and a few others. Beau Robbins will start on day 1.

8. LBs. Man, those guys look slow. Thomas Allen can tackle but he takes forever to get to someone. Willis and Jones really didnt stand out. We are young at this position and they need to play the best athletes.


9. Riggins. For a guy supposed to be our best CB, he was awful. Andre Brown played circles around him.

10. Kicking game. Justus was fine. But Smolar was unimpressive as the Kickoff guy. We cant have a guy kicking the ball to the 10 yd line.

 

[skippy1813]

Re: kicking - I believe that was more by design...

With the new fair catch rule you want to kick it to the 10-ish and somewhat bait the other team to try to return and you try to tackle them before the 25 to improve your field position.

The new rule doesn’t really make it worth it to kick out of the end zone anymore.

 

[fkfootball]

Re: kicking - I believe that was more by design...

With the new fair catch rule you want to kick it to the 10-ish and somewhat bait the other team to try to return and you try to tackle them before the 25 to improve your field position.

The new rule doesn’t really make it worth it to kick out of the end zone anymore.

I understand your point. But with our defense, we cant afford to give up points or great field position on kickoffs. I'd rather give it to the other team on the 25 than let them have a return. Too dangerous. This is IU football.

 

[Fro]

I understand your point. But with our defense, we cant afford to give up points or great field position on kickoffs. I'd rather give it to the other team on the 25 than let them have a return. Too dangerous. This is IU football.

That and our strategy ought to be to eliminate as many kickoff plays as possible so our guys don't get injured.

 

[Hoosier009]

I'll start with things I like.

1. Mike Penix. Hes the the QB recruit that we have needed for years. Man, he doesnt look like a Freshman. He has a great future.

2. Ramsey. Not the talent that Penix is, but hes a capable starter. I wish we had this version of Ramsey the last 2 seasons.

3. WRs. This is a nice group. Not real deep but they have some good players. Hale obviously, but Fryfogle does a nice job and could make some headway this year.

4. The Offensive line was decent. They did pretty well in pass blocking. Run blocking wasnt great, but they got better as the game wore on.

5. Mike Debord. This was a better game for him than the 12 I saw last year. Not ready to call him a savior, but he didnt do much to have me upset. Positive.

And the bad....

6. Tom Allen. What worries me most, is his dual role. He wont ever be as good of a HC or DC as long as he does both. Mark Hagen isnt going to be the answer. Kane Wommack is the guy. Hes had success as a lower level DC and his Dad is Dave Wommack. I'd give him a shot.

7. D-line. This is the worst position on the team. Outside of Sykes, I saw absolutely nothing from these guys. Robinson is a major disappointment. We have not recruited well here at all and we have lost the good DTs that we did recruit like Mullins, Major, and a few others. Beau Robbins will start on day 1.

8. LBs. Man, those guys look slow. Thomas Allen can tackle but he takes forever to get to someone. Willis and Jones really didnt stand out. We are young at this position and they need to play the best athletes.


9. Riggins. For a guy supposed to be our best CB, he was awful. Andre Brown played circles around him.

10. Kicking game. Justus was fine. But Smolar was unimpressive as the Kickoff guy. We cant have a guy kicking the ball to the 10 yd line.

While Westbrook was fairly quiet expect him to explode in future games. Love our WR/TE position group.

 

[Crimson Crush]

I understand your point. But with our defense, we cant afford to give up points or great field position on kickoffs. I'd rather give it to the other team on the 25 than let them have a return. Too dangerous. This is IU football.

Smolnar was a pleasant surprise to me. The kick to the 10 was completely by design. If you watch it, his goal was to pop the ball up and not drive it. It was testing them to see if they would fair catch and bring the ball to the 25 or try to run it back. Every other kick was 5 yards into the end zone.
Griffin Oakes had one year where he kicked about 5 balls out of bounds. Thought Smolnar looked good, actually

 

[fpeaugh]

At the end of the day I was very pleased how we controlled the game and got the W. Very pleasantly surprised by the QB play and the offense in general. The defense left a lot to be desired, but again...we got the W. On to the next one!

 

[IUCol]

Maybe the best thing to take away from the game is not the defensive problems but the fact the 4th quarter came and we didn't fold up. We closed it out the way it should be. Very very nice to see.

 

[fkfootball]

I'm happy with this win. No question. We didnt lose. I'd take 5 more wins by 1 point a piece. I just want bowl eligibility.

 

[Palmbeachhoosier]

I'm happy with this win. No question. We didnt lose. I'd take 5 more wins by 1 point a piece. I just want bowl eligibility.

Definitely take this win. We do have a lot to work on. But it is nice working on the mistakes after win instagram of a loss.

 

[76-1]

Definitely take this win. We do have a lot to work on. But it is nice working on the mistakes after win instagram of a loss.

You just got "auto-corrected" (instagram instead of: "instead of") but I get your drift...

At first I really appreciated autocorrect. Now I'm bringing (see!) beginning to despise it. I seem to spend half my time on here editing my autocorrects...

 

[channi]

Happy with outcome and performance. FIU was an 8-win bowl team last year and supposed to be better this year. Go Hoosiers!

 

[IndyIUFan66]

I keep saying IU won’t remain static, they know defense needs work and will be watching film, correcting the fixable stuff and evaluating players for playing time.

Plus the offense will be building on what worked to keep improving too.

I could see IU 3-0 and starting to ge by game 4 at home vs MSU, Who I think have a bad bye week in week 3! They may not be as sharp after only two games this early in the Season. Let’s hope this plays out well!