Early in the first quarter of Saturday’s matchup between IU and Nebraska, Cornhusker quarterback Tommy Armstrong stepped back in the pocket and looked deep down the field.
Nebraska looked to start the scoring quickly, and Armstrong has a big arm.
Receiver Bryan Reimers was running alongside IU freshman cornerback A’Shon Riggins when Armstrong released the ball.
A nearly 50-yard heave prompted the pair to leap for the ball, and when they both came crashing to the ground, the ball landed out of bounds. The IU freshman kept Nebraska from earning an early gain for a score, and it didn’t stop there.
The IU secondary would go on to stop four more deep passes in the game, much like they have been all season.
“You look across the country, these offenses do so many different things, where they’re testing you deep,” IU cornerbacks coach Brandon Shelby said. “If they throw 10 deep balls and you’re great on eight of them, two of them could be (touchdowns). That’s 14 points. People will forget about the other eight that they threw.”
It’s no secret the deep ball hurt the Hoosiers in 2015. They had the worst passing defense in the conference last year, allowing 313 passing yards per game.
It hurts any team when a quarterback connects deep with a receiver, but for a secondary that relies on its pride, junior cornerback Rashard Fant said stopping the deep ball against a good team boosts secondary’s confidence level.
“You can live with a 5-yard play,” Fant said. “You give up a 30-, 40,- 50-yard bomb, that changes the whole game, puts them closer to scoring. If you break it up? Ah man, that’s the biggest play because now they gotta go back, and they think they had something.”
Nebraska was able to get a deep pass for a touchdown when defensive backs freshman Jonathan Crawford and junior Tony Fields collided and released the receiver. Fant called it a “lucky play.” IU defensive coordinator Tom Allen said it was unfortunate.
After allowing a 72-yard touchdown pass to Michigan State, junior defensive back Ben Bach hasn’t started a game.
Instead, it’s been Riggins and Fant on the outside.
“They understand the game of football,” Shelby said about Fant and Riggins. “Shon’s been playing since he was five, same with Rashard. In that aspect, they roll with one another because they communicate at the same type of level.”
Finding a cornerback opposite Fant was an issue for the Hoosiers in 2015, but now with Riggins, it appears to have a confident and at least temporary fix.
“I knew he had that confidence,” Fant said. “That’s the biggest thing you have to have. When I came in, I thought I was the best cover corner no matter who was on the team. That’s the same way he felt — he was the best corner. I love the confidence in him.”
The first thing Fant heard about Riggins was he had “a really big mouth.”
He was shown a high school video of the then-recruit saying his high school team needed him.
“Why not feel like that?” Fant said. “You want to come in and you want to feel needed. That’s the only reason you come to this school.”
Fant said he felt the same way coming into Bloomington, and that’s a big reason why he has found success at the top cornerback spot during his career. The pair lead an IU secondary that’s allowing 100 fewer yards per game than it did last year, and their eyes are focused on the Big Ten-leading receiver at Northwestern, Austin Carr, who averages 7.2 catches per game.
“He’s a technician, his routes are good — where he lines up and gets to the spots that he needs to get to — he does it all well,” Fant said about Carr. “You can tell he works on his craft daily. We want to go against the best, and this will be another test that we get to take on.”
