Report Card: Some Things I Liked, Spoiled by an Epic Failure
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — There were a lot of things to like about Indiana’s game with Tennessee Thursday night in the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl, right up to that part at the end where the Hoosiers had an epic collapse.
Indiana, strutting to the finish with a 13-point and less than 5 minutes to go, allowed two touchdowns in only 30 seconds thanks to a botched onside kick, and wound up losing to the Volunteers 23-22. It was one of the painful losses in recent memory, because there was so much at stake.
Here’s how the Hoosiers graded out in my 13th and final regular season Report Card:
Rushing offense: D
For a variety of reasons, Indiana knew it would be tough to run against Tennessee, and that’s exactly what happened. The Vols’ defensive front is very good, and the Hoosiers were playing without starting running back Stevie Scott and senior guard Simon Stepaniak. Freshman Sampson James could muster only 25 yards on 11 carries, a meager 2.3-yard average.
The only success on the ground came from quarterback Peyton Ramsey, who had 54 yards on 17 carries. Sometimes he was running for his life after getting flushed out of the pocket on pass plays, but his design runs worked well, too, and he was great on quarterback sneaks once again. But still, only 76 yards on 31 carries as a team is never good enough.
Passing offense: B-minus
Ramsey was 20-for-34 passing for 227 yards, which isn’t a lot, but he was under duress a lot of the night, especially in the first half when the offensive line was struggling to get a feel for Tennessee’s blitzes. Tight end Peyton Hendershot was Ramsey’s favorite target. He had six catches for 67 yards and was one tough kid, playing through repeated shoulder injuries.
It was a bit of a surprise that leading receiver Whop Philyor had only one catch for 1 yard. Tennessee double covered him often, and he had difficulty getting open. Indiana moved the ball pretty well at the end of the half and throughout the third quarter. They even moved it late after Tennessee’s comeback, but when they needed one more play, they just couldn’t get the job done.
Rush defense: B-minus
Indiana has struggled against the run the last third of the season, but they did pretty well against Tennessee’s talented backfield. Overall, the Volunteers rushed for only 136 yards on 35 carries, a 3.9-yard average. Unfortunately, they allowed two rushing touchdowns late to lose the lead.
Indiana tackled well most of the night, which is a nice accomplishment considering that’s usually an issue in bowl games after so much time off. Linebackers Reakwon Jones and Micah McFadden both played well, with five tackles each. Jerome Johnson was the team’s leading tackler with six.
Pass defense: B-plus
Indiana had one of its better games of the year against the pass, nowhere near perfect but much better compared to the past two games against Michigan and Purdue, where they were torched for more than 800 yards combined. Defensive coordinator Kane Wommack did a nice job of dialing up pressure at the right time, and he kept Tennessee quarterback Jarrett Guarantano uncomfortabld most of the night.
Indiana had two interceptions, the first by McFadden thanks to a great blitz by fellow linebacker Cam Jones that disrupted Guarantano’s pass. The second one, by Jamar Johnson, was taken all the way to the end zone for a 63-yard score. He did a great job of jumping a route on a passing intended for Tennessee star Jauan Jennings. The only flaw was letting Guarantano go 5-for-5 on the first fourth-quarter touchdown drive. The Hoosiers got a little too conservative there and left too many big throwing windows open.
Special teams: F
Yep, F. For multiple reasons, of course, but nothing moreso that failing to cover an onside kick attempt by Tennessee with 4-plus minutes to go. We’ve already rehashed that in great detail this morning — here’s my column link — but it was clearly an epic failure by the coaching staff to have the wrong coverage group out there. With so little time left in the game, you have to be prepared for an onside kick. Put all your guys up there, and if they kick it deep, just fair catch. This was game-changing mistakes
And what a rough way for Logan Justus to end his career. When you lose a game by one-point and there’s a missed extra point in there, that really hurt. I’m not going to fault him for that 52-yard miss at the end, because that’s a long way. He had enough leg on it, but missed it right. I am including the coaching blunder in this grade, so I’m got to leave it out of the next category.
Coaching: C
OK, before you start screaming for another F, hear me out. I put the special teams coaching blunder above so I can get to some positives here. I thought coordinators Kalen DeBoer and Kane Wommack each had great games, because they hung in there and stayed true to their plans even when things were going bad. I’d give both of them B grades, but I dropped the overall a notch for Tom Allen’s poor clock management and timeout usage, which was an issue again.
DeBoer and the Hoosiers couldn’t get anything going in the first half, but he knew they were close to finding things, and he was right. Once that pass rush slowed down, Ramsey had success moving the ball and the Hoosiers scored on four straight possessions, including two drives sandwiched around halftime that included 22 plays and nearly 8 minutes off the clock. DeBoer is going to be missed. He had a great year at Indiana turning around this offense.
I mentioned earlier that I thought Wommack had a good game. It’s amazing how much difference it makes when you get a pass rush, and the Hoosiers were good at keeping Gaurantano off his spot. They both deserve props for that. But yeah, I see that F up there. Still steaming over those coaching failures
Intangibles: B
What I liked about this team Thursday was its resiliency. The defense was bend but not break early. They gave up a bunch of yards — 206 in the first half — but allowed only 6 points on three red zone trips. And the offense, which was shut out for the first 29 minutes of the game, just kept plugging away and finally started to make things happen.
How this game was lost was devastating, of course, and it was one difficult postgame interview session. There were a lot of tears flowing, because they didn’t want this special season to end this way. This is a great group of kids, something that all Hoosiers can be proud of. Eight wins is great, and it’s a shame that ninth one slipped away so late.
