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Friday, March 29
The Indiana Daily Student

sports football

Column: IU defense is improving

IU defenders chase Ohio State quarterback J.T. Barrett, who looks for an open receiver. The Hoosiers lost to the Buckeyes 42-27 on Saturday.

COLUMBUS, Ohio –Trailing 14-0 in the fourth largest football stadium in the nation, the IU defense forced a fumble, two interceptions and two punts on Ohio State’s final five drives of the first half.

During a tough year in which the offense has had its occasional woes, maybe the growth of the IU defense is the narrative of the season.

Ohio State is the No. 6 ranked team in the country and has a Heisman candidate quarterback with a spread offense perfect for dominating IU’s perimeter weaknesses.

This IU defense looked great against them at times in the 42-27 loss.

On paper, IU allowed 527 yards and 35 of the 42 points. The numbers, quite often, do not tell the full story.

The IU defense put the offense in position to take over the game and it never quite worked out.

Ohio State was favored by 34.5 points by Vegas and it did not happen that way.

Their scores were often a result of IU getting beat on the outside. This tends to be IU’s weakness, let alone against the talented outside talent the Buckeyes have.

The core of this defense, though, is something to be excited about.

Six projected starters should be returning next season and there are also several young players that get a lot of playing time such as freshman Tegray Scales, Greg Gooch and Chase Dutra, to name a few.

That front seven should be something to look forward to for IU fans.

Teams genuinely struggle to run the ball inside. Most defensive woes come when the ball gets outside.

A key part of that future is sophomore Darius Latham, who had a strong day today.

“You’ve got to pride yourself on the run and stop the run first,” Latham said.

There are moments, when this defense is on, that they become exciting, dynamic and simply fun to watch. Most of the guys that bring this athletic thrill to the team are younger players that will be back.

This is not disrespect to some of the talented older players, just a declaration that the IU defense is trending upwards for the future.

I get this gut feeling that we may look back on this season as the year the offense took a temporary step back but the defense found its identity.

“Its something to look forward to, really,” Latham said. “We’ve got young guys stepping up making plays. Young guys, sophomores, Woo Woo, Antonio Allen.”

Allen, a sophomore out of Indianapolis, had both interceptions today and is another example of the new speed and power that can be found on the IU defense.

They make mistakes, plenty of them, but they are young and are growing as responsible players. I can see the difference each week.

The offense has been the identity of the team for the past three seasons while the defense was what held them back. Now, the defense is forced to sometimes keep them in games, as we’ve seen the past few weeks.

Another thing, often the defense plays well for an extended period of time and then breaks later in games.

I think the offense will give them much more support next season with quarterback Nate Sudfeld back.

Sometimes it is necessary to keep things in perspective. IU has led in each of the past three games and there are some moments to enjoy when remembering how things changed when Sudfeld went down.

Next season, this will be an experienced defense that knows how to compete at a high level and one that will be joined by an offense looking to get back to their old ways.

Even internally, some of these guys sense that IU football is capable of making that jump.

“I think everyone overlooks IU football,” Allen said. “We just gotta go out there and fight harder.”

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