Solar

"If you're good enough, you'd better be old enough too." It took otherworldly play for a 2nd year player (Becker) to crack the two deep. I do seriously wonder how good IU is going to be when they run out of JMU super seniors. Certainly the portal is an instant way to increase experience, but there is no way this level of seniority and continuity within a system can be maintained. This year is IUs window to win it all way more than it is anyone else's, because they won't be able to replicate this situation again.

Nasir Wyatt was moved over to RB for practice this week. As others said Harris not being listed as our means he will be available. We will likely see some use of Grace in the 2 back sets in place of Davison. I think the bigger impact is protection schemes. Hill has had all season to work on his blocking. He'd better be ready to pull his weight blocking the pass rush. Silver lining is sometimes when great players are out everyone feels like they need to pick up the slack and the overall affect can be positive.

This. If he doesn't do his job looking down the field to who he should be throwing to, then it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy to hold the ball too long and get sacked. Dante needs to maintain better eye discipline after getting punched in the face so to speak. He will someday, but if he doesn't do it Friday night, our season will be over regardless of how good the rest of the team plays.

I think Brock Thomas is better at handling pass pressure than Dante. If Dante gets too rattled maybe we make the swap? (Relax, I'm only half trolling)

Wrap it down from under the shoulder, take pain killers and off you go?

Nasir Wyatt recruited as an LB was spotted repping with RBs during practice.

People probably remember how harsh I was on Dante Moore for the IU loss. Upon further reflection, I still haven't changed my mind. Moore dropped back for a deep throw on his first pass and got sacked with IU and TTU which left him really concerned about the pass rush. Then his head and eyes were down, scanning the DL so his peripheral field of view is only 5-10 yards down field. WRs/TEs further than 10 yards down field are not in his field of view. He literally can not see them, because he's too scared to look up and take his eyes off the pass rush. It's as simple as that. He doesn't trust his OL. He needs to trust the OL to do their job and focus more on doing his job. Move in the pocket based on peripheral vision but keep your eyes up to see open receivers down the field, not the other way around. If we lose because the OL doesn't do there job I can live with that, and he should live with that. But playing scared is a horrible way to lose in the playoffs. But if he can't figure out how to not play scared and wants to go pro, he'll have a fright fest playing behind that Raider OL...

If Davison broke his collar bone it wasn't during the game, because he finished with a goal line score and the wings celebration. I hope this rumor is false.

Hooo man, I hope people didn't miss this. What a game. We beat the FCS National Champion to start the year. Not bad.

Montana State (that we played), vs. Illinois State I believe. Hopefully someone else has the start time and station info handy.

At this point, the only thing that will hurt more for Alabama and the SEC is if Indiana, the team that beat them down, loses to another B1G team. Of course if Ole Miss wins it all, then the horrible record of bowl season and the playoffs for the SEC will be instantly forgotten.

Time of possession is meaningless against Indiana until the last 5 minutes of each half. The one thing we have to do to beat Indiana is to be more efficient than them. If we get more points per possession than they do, we win. The hard part about being efficient is playing mistake free football.

Why are we using percentages and averaging? "How many national championships does UW have" is an addition question. They have .7 national championships. If we win .7<1 and we will have 'more national championships. And be clear out odds of winning the Natty assuming all teams are equal is only 25 percent, and even though all teams are not equal it would appear that our underdog status to IU and big dog status to the other two is basically a wash. So our odds to winning it all are still not that good TBH.

Honestly I don't see the PI in the photos. Maybe his right arm was being held down but I don't see that in the photos of Benson's left side. I do see the db is not looking back, so there is definitely no excuse of I was trying to make a play on the ball. I certainly prefer refs that don't call PI with our DBs as handsy as they are.

Excellent article. I agree that after 14 games, we've pretty much seen it all and how our team responds to each style and capability of opponent. We should not see Stein trying things that didn't work the first time or against TTU. One note. There is a type of run play that works against formidable DLs that are getting a lot of penetration. I call it action-play. It is the opposite of play action that instead of faking a run and throwing the pass, you fake the pass and have delayed hand-off or pitch inside for a run. Was this does is stretch the front seven vertically as they pass rush creating horizontal lanes to get clear of the DL. I saw multiple teams use it with success in the quarterfinals, including us, but we didn't come back to it. If there is one thing our team lack due to youth of players and coordinators is trusting in themselves. Players getting really conservative not trusting their ability to compete with similarly talented opponents. I also think we understand this time that we need to get 30 points against IU if we want to a chance to win.

It definitely feels like the outcome will be decided based on how well Oregon plays, since Indiana is so consistently good and mistaken free. I agree with the above post that both teams are better than at the beginning of the season. If I recall our only offensive touchdown was Benson getting behind the defense on a big throw, yet Stein or Moore never went back to it during to the perceived lack of time, but some of that is Moore trusting the time has actually has, trusting his eyes and delivering the ball to the open receivers. Moore has significantly improved his ability to read zone coverage since the first Indiana games. I'm worried about too much dink and dunk. It doesn't work against a disciplined 4-3 defense. Indiana's only weakness is their athleticism. That's why we can run straight at them with success, and our WRs can get open. They kind of remind me of Stanford's best teams in the 2010s with their elite discipline and execution.

Yeah I've had my eye on Montana State. I still think they were our toughest non conference opponent. Also did anyone see Robbie Ashford lighting it up for Wake Forest vs. Mississippi State? I'm glad he was able to put it all together. He looked like he had a lot of potential when he was here.

I don't see a dedicated thread for discussing the game Friday so I'm starting a new thread. I think there is broad consensus that we have to play a complete game for the first time all season to win. Our coaches need to game plan for the Indiana that played Thursday, not the Indiana that we played earlier in the year. The good news is I'm pretty sure the Rose Bowl last year taught the coaches this lesson. Also DL isn't foolish enough to believe "it's hard to beat the same team twice" having lost to UW twice in 2023. I expect full effort this week from the analysts, coordinators, and DL. It's a neutral site in the same time zone we played this week and the game time is evening and being played in a dome, so there should be little circumstantial issues for us to worry about.

NCAA.comTrack which conferences are winning the 2025-26 college f...Follow along here to track the records of conferences during the FBS bowl season. As it stands right now, the B1G is 9-4 will all 9 wins against other conferences. The SEC is 4-9 and 2 of those 4 wins are against other SEC teams. For once I'll agree with a fan base that says they beat themselves. That's pretty much all they can beat are themselves. One can dream about AP polls and coaches polls coming down to earth before next season and not ranking every SEC team with such high rankings, but I'll believe it when I see it.

They likely will be stopped simply by playing at 4:30pm instead of 9am.

Congratulations! I picked high, price is right style. I should have just bid 1 dollar for Texas Tech, but hindsight is 20:20.

The OL play was surprising. Like they had trouble waking up. Pregnon alone killed 2 drives in the 1st quarter with "what were you thinking?" missed blocks. He's literally the #1 guard in the country and he killed 2 drives. Our center who is a Remington finalist screwed up multiple snap, one that took us out of field goal range and another that blew the timing of a play for a loss of yards. He also blew quite a few blocks. Obviously there were other OL struggles just due to TTU 's amazing front seven who is likely the best front 7 in the country, better than Indiana and Iowa at least by a clear amount. Looking back at the NW game that was also at 9am we weren't as crisp. Fans that know better say the Orange Bowl at noon local time was a disaster. For those that remember, the Orange Bowl used to be the last bowl on New Year's day late into the evening with a real party like atmosphere. I think we've learned that the current playoff format does really suck, in multiple ways, and that our players can really struggle with early games (who knows that maybe it really affected Morton to play at 11am), and that our ceiling in each phase is as high as anybody, we are 14 games into the season and STILL haven't put it all together for a complete game.

DeBoer's seat get hotter with every Indiana score. Kind of feels like the 2015 Alamo Bowl against TCU with Helfrich. It was a big sign it was a relationship that is doomed. Is Finebaum going to be able to spin this SEC Trainwreck into something positive?

OC Grubb was supposed to be the secret sauce, but he went the NFL and bombed. I think this is indeed one of those situations where the players made the coach great. Jake Haener was a football god at Fresno State for DeBoer and Grubb, then Penix at UW with Peterson's recruits as others have mentioned.

You were right. The woodshed is full of crimson like a rolling tide.