IU must improve its defense for Big Ten play

Prior to engaging in any physically taxing activity, athletes are typically afforded ample time to stretch, get the blood pumping and shake off the nerves.

It’s an eerily similar regimen to that of the college football season.

The majority of college football’s major programs begin their seasons with the “cupcake” portion, which is littered with teams from the Football Championship Subdivision and the lower half of the Football Bowl Subdivision.

That stretch of what are, essentially, glorified scrimmages serves as a tune-up for the grind of conference play.

Teams such as North Texas (remember the Mean Green, Hoosier fans?), Florida Atlantic, Eastern Michigan, Idaho and Texas State are each willing to take on the role of proverbial punching bag in exchange for a glorious paycheck.

Indiana, like many of its major conference counterparts, added a similar tune-up period to its 2012 schedule.

It was anything but a routine warm-up, though.

Instead of rolling effortlessly through their first three opponents like a bowling ball, the Hoosiers trudged through the thick mud that was the first quarter of the still-young 2012 season.

It began three weeks ago with an intrastate battle with the Indiana State Sycamores, a team seemingly inferior to IU Coach Kevin Wilson’s.

They proved to be anything but, as the Sycamores went wire-to-wire with the Hoosiers before falling painstakingly close to an upset in an eventual 24-17 loss.

What Wilson and Co. learned on that humid autumn evening was a distressing lesson that will haunt Indiana for the remaining nine games on the schedule: The Hoosiers struggle mightily to defend the run.

ISU running back Shakir Bell, an Indianapolis native, cut and slashed his way to 192 net rushing yards on Sept. 1, rendering the Indiana front seven utterly ineffective.

The following week’s contest at Massachusetts was shaping up to be a healthy recovery for the Hoosiers but, instead, morphed into an ugly nightmare.

Starting sophomore quarterback Tre Roberson, the lifeblood of the Indiana offense, broke his leg during the second quarter, ending his sophomore season.

Despite losing Roberson, the Hoosiers cruised to a 45-6 victory against the Minutemen, displaying that not all was lost with Roberson’s horribly unfortunate exit.

Riding a small bit of momentum and a 2-0 record entering last Saturday’s contest with Ball State, the Hoosiers showed why this season remains to be very much another rebuilding year for Wilson and the IU coaching staff.

The Indiana defense yielded 206 net rushing yards to the Cardinals, as well as 234 passing yards for a grand total of 440.

The defense was gashed time and again by a scrappy Cardinals offense that refused to quit, an attitude that earned Ball State a successful game-winning field goal attempt with one second remaining in regulation.

As the old saying goes, “Defense wins championships.”

The Hoosiers certainly have an offense that can compete, but they lack even a basic foundation of a championship-caliber defense.

The lesson learned here for the Hoosiers is Big Ten Conference play will only present a slew of more difficult challenges on the long road that is Wilson’s reclamation project in Bloomington, particularly because of the porous defense.

We know it can score points in bunches, but will it be enough to stay afloat once the Big Ten gauntlet begins?

Only time will tell.

­— ckillore@indiana.edu