Indiana’s coordinators take their share of blame for recent struggles

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — It was easy to point fingers at the players who took part in Indiana’s 51-10 blowout by Ohio State on Saturday, but the coaches — especially first-year coordinators Kalen DeBoer and Kane Wommack — also fessed up to their shortcomings as well.

During the first three games of the season, Indiana has won twice and got smacked by the No. 6-ranked Buckeyes, and two common threads have been issues through all three games. The Hoosiers’ offense has really struggled to run the ball and defensively, missed tackles and missed assigments also have been a problem.

The guys in charge of both groups stood tall and vowed to fix things.

“I’m critical of myself too. I’m critical of myself just like I ask the guys to be critical of what they put on film and how they played on Saturday,’’ DeBoer said. “As a staff, we continue to look at that, for sure.’’

The running game, which was good a year ago, has struggled out of the gate. Stevie Scott, IU’s workhorse a year ago when he gained 1,137 yards, has only 118 so far in three games, and is averaging only 3.2 yards a carry.

DeBoer said there’s nothing wrong with Scott, and he keeps looking at what he can do to make the running game better.

“I look at what am I doing and what more I can do to help us get us on track,’’ he said. “Is it focusing more on situational things, or trying establish it more early in the game? Teams have done good job of loading the box on us, and playing man on us last week, that’s (Ohio State’s) thing. They were good.

“We’ve got to once in a while live with 2 or 3 yards early in the game so it can be 6 or 7 and then 10 or 15 later as the game goes along. That’s what good running teams do, establish it and let that wear down your opponent. We need to do that, too.’’

DeBoer was the offensive coordinator at Fresno State the past two seasons and they rushed for more than 2,000 yards both years. So we do know it’s possible to have success running the ball in his offense, which is some of that from a few years ago, some of what went on here and some more new wrinkles put in from him.

“I think there’s an adjustment, and every place is a little different,’’ DeBoer said. “We saw a lot of odd-man fronts there (at Fresno), in the MAC (when he was the offensive coordinator at Eastern Michigan from 2014-16) we saw more four down. There’s an adjustment not only to what you have, but what you’re seeing, too.

“There’s a lot of that we are doing that carried over, and it’s certainly something we’re focused on right now. We need to improve the run game to give us better opportunities and get in more manageable positions on third down. We certainly are addressing the run game and we believe with the guys we can have that we can get it done. It’s all about finding our style, our niche, what fits us and what fits with the rest of the offense.''

Wommack looks in the mirror, too. And he was asked exactly that after he started his weekly news conference being critical of what his players did on Saturday. There are things he needs to work on, too, and he knows it.

“I think, first thing, obviously when they went to some tempo, there were too many times where I brought pressures and we didn’t get lined up right with the defensive line,’’ Wommack said. “That’s always a little bit of a feel thing. When we’re going fast, I have to understand that I have to do a better job with the communication between myself and them. There’s some things we can tweak to do a better job when teams are going tempo against us.

“I thought our run fits through spring ball, fall camp, and into the first two games, we’ve done such a good job of lining up and doing the right things, We didn’t do that against Ohio State. Knowing what to do, that doesn’t matter who you’re playing against.’’

For everyone involved, it was definitely a learning experience that to compete against a team like Ohio State, everyone has to be at their best.

“When you compete and go so hard like we all do when you work for Tom Allen, it’s disappointing,’’ Wommack said. “We expected to win that game. We didn’t do everything perfect as coaches, too, and we need to fix that ourselves as well.’’

And everyone, players and coaches alike, has to be on the same page going forward. There's still a long season to go, and this Ohio State game is over.

“You have to say enough is enough, and do your job at a high level,’’ Wommack said. “It’s all across the board, and it’s the same deal to me as a coach.

“We’ve got to show up. Enough is enough. Let’s go execute and do our job on the field. We need to be proud of how we go out and compete. We’re going to change it and this group, we’re going to be the reason why.’’