Tag: indiana hoosiers football

Big Ten Bowl Impact: Indiana vs Tennessee

We look back on the Gator Bowl game between Indiana and Tennessee and see how it impacted both the 2019 and 2020 seasons.

With the 2019 college football season officially in the books, it’s time to look back on how the Big Ten did in bowl games.

As we go through all the bowls, in no particular order, we will focus on two main things:

1. How did the bowl performance end the 2019 season? Was it a fitting end or a poor performance, etc.
2. What impact, if any, will it have on the 2020 season.

2020 Gator Bowl: Indiana vs Tennessee

The matchup

Indiana came into the game as an underdog. The Hoosiers were a solid team, but facing an improving Tennessee team that had better recruits, better skill athletes, and ended the season on a five-game winning streak. Indiana, meanwhile, did not beat a single team of note during the season, but also avoided bad losses. It was a huge opportunity for the Hoosiers, but they couldn’t take advantage.

What went right

Indiana punched well above its weight class for almost the entirety of this game. The Hoosiers had a brilliant offensive strategy, got precisely the quarterback play it needed, and had the defense hang with Tennessee’s talent all game long. Tom Allen and his team very clearly brought a perfect game plan, which they managed to execute almost to perfection. The longer the game went, the clearer it was that Indiana was the better-coached and better team. But the Hoosiers let Tennessee stick around.

What went wrong

There’s a lot I can point to throughout the game about this, but I’m only going to focus on the mistakes towards the end. In a terrible minute-long span, Indiana played horrible defense, wasn’t at all prepared for an onside kick, and then played terrible defense again. In the blink of an eye, a 13-point lead turned into a one-point deficit.

Indiana fans and the program should be all over Tom Allen for not being prepared for that onside kick. He coached an incredible game and season, but he couldn’t do the little things that were absolutely needed. This tweet sums it up better than I could:

Next… 2019 wrap-up and 2020 impact

Pages: Page 1, Page 2

Big Ten, big ’20s: Indiana football

Indiana football in the 2020s

Given that Kalen DeBoer became the head coach at Fresno State, due to Jeff Tedford’s departure, a natural question facing the Indiana Hoosiers in the 2020s will focus on the ability of IU football to cultivate a high-level offense. That is a valid area of examination when looking at the big questions confronting the Hoosiers in the next decade.

Yet, the Hoosiers’ chops on offense are more a part of the larger question than the biggest question in itself. If one is to identify the biggest question staring the Hoosiers in the face as the 2020s begin, it’s more than just the offense. Indiana needs to show the Big Ten that it can beat the best teams in the league.

Indiana has played Michigan close several times in recent years — not 2019, but certainly in some of the years before that. Indiana has played Ohio State close in a number of first halves. Indiana has been known to be a pest to a number of upper-tier Big Ten teams, Penn State also as part of the mix.

Yet, while Indiana does bother a lot of the really good teams in the Big Ten, it hardly ever wins. If Indiana is ever going to rise to a higher level, or at least, if the Hoosiers ever want to get a realistic chance of raising their ceiling, they need to break through and notch a high-value win against one of the big boys in the Big Ten. More precisely, Indiana needs to beat one of those big boys when the big boy is at (or close to) the height of its powers.

Indiana’s 8-4 season in 2019 was certainly a productive and encouraging campaign. Indiana football fans would take a decade filled with 8-4 seasons. They would be justified in desiring that standard from their program; it would undeniably rate as a clear improvement.

That said, if Indiana ever wants to reach a higher level of achievement, it has to slay the dragon. Are the Hoosiers ever going to get to that point? The question looms over the program, and it’s going to be part of the story if IU football until the Hoosiers can change the equation. Indiana hasn’t made the Rose Bowl since the 1960s. Minnesota has shown it might snap a long Rose Bowl drought in the near future. Indiana has to be able to beat Michigan or Penn State to enter that same conversation.