The Indiana Hoosiers were one of the feel-good stories in college football in 2020. The season was shortened by the pandemic, but the Hoosiers still did overachieve. They surprised everyone by losing only one game in the regular season. Coach Tom Allen authored an unexpected renaissance. Indiana played in a January bowl game and cracked the top 15 of the national rankings. It was a special year at a school known for college basketball. Indiana has not made the Rose Bowl since the 1967 college football season. Precisely because of all the accomplishments recorded by the Hoosiers in 2020, they 2021 season was going to be a fascinating test of this program\u2019s ability to maintain its standing in the sport. It did not work out well. Indiana coughed up two interceptions for touchdowns in the season opener at Iowa. That loss had a domino effect which carried into the rest of the season. Indiana scored more than 24 points in just three of its games. The Hoosiers finished 2-10, leading a lot of people to think that the 2020 season was a fluke. Now, Indiana has a lot to prove. The Hoosiers have Missouri transfer Connor Bazelak at quarterback, and he will be asked to lead a revival of a team which fell off a pedestal last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Key Personnel Lost<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Quarterback Michael Penix transferred to Washington, while tight end Peyton Hendershot and receiver Ty Fryfogle left the program. Fryfogle made some clutch catches in the breakthrough 2020 season, but could not replicate his big-play production last year. Nevertheless, his presence does figure to be missed. Indiana is also changing offensive coordinators, with former UMass head coach Walt Bell taking over play-calling duties in the hope that IU will gain more of a spark on the offensive side of the ball.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Micah McFadden is a top linebacker who will not return this season. Indiana\u2019s defense was great when McFadden played last year, but when he was injured or otherwise unavailable, the quality of the defense suffered. That is something to pay attention to this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Important Incoming Freshmen<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Linebacker Dasan McCullough is one of the top 10-rated linebacker recruits in the 2022 class. Allen is an elite defensive coach. He was the defensive coordinator for this team before being promoted to head coach. He has developed great linebackers at Indiana, and McCullough will be expected to become the next elite player in the middle layer of the IU defense. This is Allen\u2019s wheelhouse in terms of player development, so Hoosier fans should be supremely confident that McCullough will live up to the hype.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Key Position Battles<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The offensive line and wide receiver will be the two big positions of need for IU. Bazelak offers some promise and potential at quarterback, but he needs to be surrounded by an offensive line and pass catchers which will bring out his best ball and make him look better. Indiana was one of several Big Ten teams with a very impotent offense last year. Upgrading the O-line and receiver will enable the Hoosiers to be a lot more successful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Biggest Offseason Goal(s)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Indiana\u2019s offense had just 34 plays of 20 yards or more last season. That\u2019s a very small number. Indiana scored an average of under 18 points per game. The Hoosiers need to see significant growth and evolution on offense in their offseason. It\u2019s that simple.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Indiana Hoosiers were one of the feel-good stories in college football in 2020. The season was shortened by the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":7600,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ncaaf"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22162"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22166,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22162\/revisions\/22166"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}