You're listening to the back home network, presented by home field. Apparel. Welcome back to Crimson, Cask ale, and klaviyo. Joining you here? It's Friday night. The 21st of October, as we get ready for this weekend's game between. The Indiana Hoosiers football team and the Rutgers Scarlet Knights Indiana three and four on the season. Coming into this one as they take on a Rutgers team that hasn't been a whole lot better on the season that Indiana has. This is really not a sexy
matchup. I'll be the first to say that but it's an interesting one and I think one that is going to be maybe fascinating some too strong of a word, but certainly a curiosity as Indiana. Desperately desperately needs a win, they have lost four games in a row after winning their first three and they're kind of staring down the barrel of, you know, some really bad things happen in down the stretch here. If they can't figure out a way to pull this one out.
So we talked about that one briefly and just talk about what Indiana is going to need to do, if they want a chance in this game. First of all, just a reminder, that Crimson cast is part of the back home network. And the back home network is brought to you by home-field apparel our presenting sponsor. We love home field apparel, they're releasing some fascinating stuff these days.
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All right, let's talk about Indiana versus Rutgers. The Scarlet. Knights coming into this game with a 3 and 3 record on the season.
Actually their season is largely We mirrored Indiana's - the Big Ten victory that Indiana's got against Illinois, Rucker so far on the season, for those who haven't been keeping up, they beat Boston College by one to start off the season, they beat Wagner by a lot of points, 59 points to be exact, and they barely beat Temple at Temple, and that was kind of the sign that things may be, were not, all right, in Schiano land, and they followed that up with some really dismal offensive
performances. The last four weeks, Including that Temple game, they've scored 16 10 10 and 13 points as they've lost to Iowa, Ohio, State, and Nebraska, that Nebraska game in particular, was that was a tough one to watch as it look, you know, running a Rutgers jumped out to a lead and Nebraska who we've seen, who's not a very good team. Somehow found a way to come back and win that one. So you know this Rutgers team really does have a lot in common. I think, just statistically with
Indiana Rutgers averaging 22 points. 8 on the season but that's almost entirely because of that Wagner game. They're giving up 22 points per game. Meanwhile Indiana averaging 25 and a half points a game but giving up 31 and a half points per game. And you know while you certainly you can look at Indiana and say well their offense showed something last week and that they know the 33 points they scored against Maryland, they also gave up 38 points on defense, they lost that game
obviously. And so the big question it's like does Indiana have what it takes From an offensive perspective to score enough points that they you know, get it, you know put themselves in a good position to win, can they simply outscore this Rutgers team but then the flip side is also can I use defense who has really struggled so far this season figure out a way to put it together and give Indiana a
chance to win. As, you know, they've frankly I think the as much as the offense has struggled for this Indiana team, the defense has I struggled just as much and certainly that showed last week as Indiana was just simply incapable of stopping Maryland at times when they frankly should have been able to stop. Maryland, you look at this Rutgers team overall. I mean you know if we take the PFF College grades, they've really struggled offensively at
inopportune times. And last week, the real problem for this team was there. Passing game, I mean, they're passing game graded Out Among the worst passing games. We've seen from any team in college football so far this season and it wasted, what was frankly, a very good defensive game from Rutgers where they their defense really played out of their skulls. They had a great pass rush. They are they defended the run very well against Nebraska.
Now, Nebraska helped on that front quite a bit simply because they're, they're not very good on offense, but it was not enough. And unfortunately, Lee for Rutgers, they find themselves in this position where there's don't have a quarterback at the end of the day and you look at the numbers that they've racked up thus far Evans. Simon the sophomore quarterback has had to play but only four
touchdowns six interceptions. 71 completions out of a hundred and twenty three attempts, only seven hundred and forty yards so far on the season. You look at Noah vendrell, your thought mail, maybe he would be able to come in and do something this year. But his whole career has been a Of a disappointment and he is barely thrown the ball.
He's only played in two games thus far this season, you know, running the ball Rutgers that mean, their nominal starting running back as a freshman Samuel Brown, the fifth, don't see a whole lot of fifths and in college football and then you've got a pair of sophomores that are second and third in total rushing yardage Kyle manang guy and I'll shitty Salam and that is generally a bad sign if you're relying entirely on freshman and Sophomores to carry the load on the the rushing side
of things, you're probably going to be struggling. Now their offensive line is also not been particularly great this year but overall I mean they when they run the ball, they run the ball, okay? It's just that the Run blocking has not been particularly good. If you trust what you're seeing in terms of the overall numbers, this is where this game gets difficult to judge because Indiana, frankly has not looked very good either, in a lot of ways Indiana's Run game.
Mirrors what we see from Rutgers where they've had individual good performances from running backs on certain plays. But when you grade everything out so much of it is hard to grayed out because the offensive line has not been able to do. Its job, particularly effectively, I think the difference between these two teams right now offensively is that Indiana's passing game hard as this might be.
For some of you folks to believe, has actually performed better than Rutgers passing game and I mean that follows in the grave It follows in the overall statistics and that's not to say that Indiana is passing game has been good, it's just that Indiana's passing game. Has been better than Rutgers on the flipside, Rutgers defense. You know, if you take that, Ohio State game out of the equation, which I think is fair, I think we're going to want to do that with Indiana's when they play
Ohio State later overall there. I think they're running game has been pretty good or is he's me their defensive games and Pretty good overall. They played very well against Boston College. And Against Temple and they played very well against Nebraska, you know, not as well obviously against the other two teams they played in the conference. But To some degree.
The question you have to ask yourself at that point, as well as Indiana, like, Iowa, and Ohio, State, or is Indiana more like Nebraska. And unfortunately, you have to say that Indiana is a bit more, not like Nebraska, especially since Indiana lost to Nebraska and gave up a decent amount of points while doing so this Hoosiers team coming into the season, has just excuse me. Coming into this game throughout the course of this season has just not been able to perform a
whole lot of offensively. And it's actually I'd say gotten slightly worse over the last two weeks than it had been even in the first part of the season when Indiana was winning and scoring points. But largely because the opposition they were playing wasn't necessarily great or I mean it's hard to take that Illinois game. Seriously, at this point, how given, how well, Illinois has played and how poorly Indiana's played, since then overall.
But I think that there's there's enough here from a statistical perspective. Where when you look at Indiana, you say, okay, if they can keep Rutgers out of the offensive Back Field, that they've probably got a pretty good shot in this game, simply, because we've seen so little out of the Rutgers offense, that it's hard to Envision the Rutgers offense, suddenly putting it together and figuring out how to score a bunch of points against Indiana's defense.
And, you know, that's going to be the big question. In my mind is like, how many points does Rutgers score, does Indiana take advantage of, you know, what is not a terribly impressive passing game? Do they load up against the run and essentially dare Rutgers to beat them through the air?
You know, is that the ticket that they go with and you know, if that's the case and they're able to pull that off, I think they've got a really good chance of Victory because Rutgers just has not shown a propensity for being able to do a whole lot through the air and you know, Indiana's run defense while I think it has deteriorated a bit over the course of the last few weeks should be able to be up to the challenge of keeping Rutgers run offense in check at least one would hope the other
question. Of course, we talked about this going into the, the Maryland game is what do the the turnovers look like for this game? So far on the season, Rutgers has a turnover margin of exactly
zero. They have Given up 10 and they have taken away 10 and so you're looking at it from that perspective, this is not a Rutgers team that has thrived in the turnover game and you know, so then you look at Indiana and you're like okay is this an Indiana team that might be able to take advantage of things because Indiana while it looked bad. Certainly in the game against Maryland at the end of the day I mean they're only - 3 on the season and the -3 came entirely out of the Maryland game.
They were even going into that game. So If Indiana is able to keep it copacetic, in terms of the turnover situation, they're not given the ball to Rutgers, they're not given the Rutgers offense. Opportune field position they should, I think be okay in this contest at least one would hope because, you know, kind of Basil a cake. If you go read, bite-sized bison by Taylor Layman. He's been pressured.
So heavily this season, you know, when he hasn't been pressured heavily, he has been able to complete some Yes, but that's been so rare. And this is probably the one game left on the schedule that you could point to and say Indiana's offensive line should be able to give him sufficient time to find receivers and get the ball to them. And that's probably going to be the key to victory for Indiana if they're able to jump on Rutgers early.
Move the ball through the air and not turn the ball over unnecessarily. They should have enough cushion to be able to do all of that simply because I don't know that Rutgers is necessarily going to be up to the task of penetrating. The backfield, consistently making Connor basal-like uncomfortable on a regular
basis. And if he's got that extra second or two that he didn't have against Maryland, didn't have against Michigan, didn't have really against Nebraska that might give him enough space, to be able to find Camp camper or any of his other receivers. At the ball down, the field, effectively. And I think if Indiana is able to score, if they had a scores 24 points in this game, I have a real hard time seeing a
situation where Rutgers is going to be able to score. 25 points to beat Indiana and less Indiana beats themselves, either through shoddy line play or turning the ball over or some combination there in that's about as as tepid case for optimism, as I can come up with, but it's see how I feel, you know, clearly both of these teams are not particularly good football teams. And I think that, for, for Indiana, in particular, it's it's, it's on.
It's not just unfortunate. It's, it's a bit sad that they're if the spot that they're at right now. But this is the kind of game that can help to change that narrative a bit if they can go into this game and they can take advantage of playing a relatively weak opponent on the road. Then, to some degree.
I mean, I'm not gonna say All Is Forgiven, but now you're back to 4 and 4. And you've at least got to essentially, seesaw, types of games, potentially left on the schedule between Michigan State and Purdue.
I mean, pretty was playing well. But at least that games at home that, you know, you least give yourself a Fighting Chance Rutgers, you know, clearly last year they they kind of overachieved a bit and if you forgotten, you know, Rutgers last year was A bit of a surprise team overall, in terms of how they perform down the stretch, of course, they blew Indiana out in the game that they played last year in Bloomington, you know, and they finished last season five and
eight, you know, they end up going to a bowl in kind of a, you know, a weird circumstance. And, you know, they had a couple of good wins last year. They won at Illinois, 22:14. They know they kept it close at Michigan. They only lost by seven last year. They it's the guess, the thing that concerns me is they only had three games last year total where they scored more than 19 points. Are they at four games last year with the scored more than 19 points?
One of those games was against Illinois, one of those games was against Delaware, one of those games was against Temple and one of those games against Indiana and they actually scored the third most points that they scored All Season against Indiana at Indiana. The Delaware game was at home, the temple game was at home and the Illinois game while that was on the road, that was not exactly an offense Fest.
They only won that game 2214. So, you know, if I have some trepidation and picking Indiana, it's kind of twofold one fpi, which is ESPN's predictor, gives Rutgers at 58 percent, chance of Victory. Now, I think a lot of that is kind of twofold. It's a, it's an artifact of the fact that the gain is a At Rutgers, so they do get a bit of a bump there, but be Rutgers does look a lot better in terms of the metrics in terms of the analytics than Indiana.
Does Indiana looks real bad. Right now, in the analytic, this is not me talking. This is PFF College, you know? They have Indiana graded. I think is the second worst Power 5 team in total across all of college football. I think the only team that they've got rated worse than them is Colorado. And, you know, you look at some of the Their metrics and Indiana's like a bottom, five
power Conference team. In offensive efficiency, there a bottom five defensive team in defensive efficiency in the power 5 and Rutgers while they haven't looked good, hasn't looked that bad like they have not looked bottom of the barrel like Indiana has looked for much of these games and to some degree that that Illinois win, that, that Indiana picked up has given them. And frankly, the Western
Kentucky game too. To, which was for those of you forgotten an overtime game against the Western Kentucky name that has turned out to not be very good that Western Kentucky team, that's lost some games that kind of make you scratch your head like those two wins have papered over a team that realistically should probably have like one maybe two
wins on the year. If you look at their efficiency numbers and if you look at the way that they're graded out in terms of the observational elements of of the grading systems for football, That is really what gives me pause. You know, we put a poll out on Crimson cast last night on Twitter. What do you want out of a preview podcast? And, you know, the winner, not the runaway winner, but the winner of that was Good Vibes.
So I'm trying my best to give some good vibes on this by saying, you know, looking at Rutgers offensive struggles and looking at the fact that Indiana when they've been able to keep pressure off of counter basil, act has shown the ability in those rare moments. Moments to move the ball, through the air. I like Indiana slightly. I mean, I'm talking about, I like Indiana by three or four
points. I think it's as likely to be a slug Fest, but this is the kind of game given the struggles that Rutgers is had offensively that Indiana should win. And frankly where Indiana has indicated that, they think they should be, as a program. It's a game. They absolutely have to win, you know, because to lose this game and to lose two years in a row to Rutgers Actually States.
Well, we're below Rutgers in the pecking order and you've already essentially established now that you're behind Maryland in the pecking order as well because now you've lost to Marilyn two
times in a row. And so these are the kinds of things that you know, I I tend to think Indiana is going to look at that, they're going to focus on a particular game plan that has a chance of working because if they can score some points early, if they can get off to to a good start offensively and get some points on the board. They might just Be able to get too far ahead of Rutgers for Rutgers to be able to adequately come back.
The downside, all of that is the statistics do not back that up and Greg Schiano is a real good coach, Greg Schiano, you know, I think to some degree, people have forgotten, how good of a coach he is. I think he demonstrated it last year with, you know, what was a Rutgers team that was not? Well, put together, he did, you know, he had taken over that roster and had to figure stuff out on the Fly and somehow managed to piece together a good season.
And these are not the games that Indiana tends to do well. And I mean, it is a rarity still and historically for Indiana to thrive in games on the road, in the Big Ten and you know, Rutgers is not been an exception even in 2020, Indiana struggled a bit in that game versus Rutgers. People have kind of forgotten that game but that was that was not an easy game for Indiana to win. So I'm going to pick Indiana and this one, you know, I'm going to
say Indiana is going to win. Say 24 to 20 but I would be leery. I don't know that I would, if you're a wagering person I don't know that I would put any money on this game at all because there's a lot of intangibles, a lot of things with both teams that could go wrong or could go right, that are very difficult to figure out ahead of time.
So, anyway, I'm not sure if that's good vibes or just trepidation, but we'll see what happens with this Indiana team and hopefully, they can figure out a way to pull this out. Get themselves back up to 500 get a second, Big 10 win. Maybe set themselves up for the bye week with a more positive attitude and mentality, which I think is going to be important for this team as they move forward. Anyway, that's going to wrap it up for us today, we will be back
with basketball. Talk coming up soon. We'll also have our postgame podcast, probably coming up on Sunday. We might get ambitious and recorded Saturday, some time, but be expected on Sunday as it normally comes through. I appreciate all you folks for listening in as always and I hope you have a pleasant weekend for Crimson Castle. Last. I am Galen klaviyo. Will catch you. Folks on the flip side? Bring back the Bison, so everybody