My two cents: Penix's 'day-to-day' status might as well extend to Michigan State on Sept. 28

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — One things we learned about Indiana's offense on Saturday is that it's much better with Michael Penix Jr. at the helm than it is with Peyton Ramsey or anyone else.

I'm not saying that the final outcome would have been different, because Ohio State is really, really good, and they proved that in the 51-10 rout. But Penix is talented, and he would have made a difference, because Ramsey — who is 7-11 in two-plus years as a starter at Indiana — missed a lot of golden opportunities on Saturday, especially early in the game when he couldn't connect on deep balls with open receivers.

It's a new week now, though, and it's on to Connecticut. The Huskies show up Saturday for a Noon ET game at Memorial Stadium, and it's a golden opportunity to "flush'' — Monday's operative word — the Ohio State blowout and get back to their winning ways as the season goes on.

We got updates from Indiana coach Tom Allen and offensive coordinator Kalen DeBoer on Monday and the update on Penix is that "it's going to be a day-to-day thing this week,'' according to Allen.

Indiana still hasn't officially disclosed the extent — or location — of Penix's injury, but we're guessing from videos from the Sept. 7 game against Eastern Illinois that it looks shoulder related.

I'm not a doctor and I've never played one on TV, but I've had several teammates and athletes I've covered through the years deal with shoulder injuries. If that's it, and he's "day to day,'' then I'm guessing is a strain that needs rest and rehab, in varying percentages of importance.

So, for sure, Allen and his staff — which includes the doctors and trainers — shouldn't even thing about rushing him back for a nonconference game with UConn. Not with a very important Big Ten game with Michigan State coming the following week.

Let's forget about seeing Penix on Saturday and do our best to have him ready for the Spartans, a team the Hoosiers absolutely must beat to finally make their move up the pecking order in the Big Ten East.

"I think, probably to be fair, I'll probably know some more by even the end of (Monday) of kind of how that will look,'' Allen said of Penix. "I don't foresee it hopefully not being a day-to-day thing the rest of the season. But at the same time, for this Saturday's game, we definitely aren't going to know for several more days, probably will eventually be a game-time decision with him as well to figure out if he can go or not.

"But I don't expect that to keep being the case every single week, and hopefully we'll get to the point where we'll feel good about it and be able to put it behind us. So that's my update on that.''

Allen and his staff — like all football coaches do — often focus on the week at hand, but this is a unique moment in the schedule, where the Hoosiers should be able to beat UConn without Penix. The Hoosiers are 27-point favorites despite Penix's status. That's heavy favorite status there.

Getting Allen to at this look like more of a two-week window instead of one isn't necessarily an easy thing to do. Most coaches aren't wired that way, especially after a 51-10 blowout where nothing gets taken for granted, even beating a team like UConn, which really isn't an obvious pushover.

"I think the thing that's the variable in all that is that we just tell our guys, hey, you got to do everything you can, work as hard as you can to be back as soon as you can,'' Allen said. "But he is a young quarterback and so getting him reps is very important.

"So to me, it's a matter of if he can, if he is able to go, then he needs to go. That's how I look at it.''

To me, if Penix is only 80 or 90 percent by Saturday, he should just sit this one out and take another week to get better and healthier. I get the whole "he needs reps'' thing, because he is just a redshirt freshman who has thrown only 94 passes in his year-plus as a college quarterback in Bloomington

Could he use the work? Sure. But it's even more important that he can be as healthy as he can be when we all head up to East Lansing on Sept. 28. That's the game that matter more, even if it's not the next game up.

Sept. 28 should be the next time we see Michael Penix Jr. on the field.

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