Normally, senior quarterback Nate Sudfeld would be given the credit for such a statistic, but the team and Sudfeld are both giving credit to the players around him.
“I think we feel the more people we can get involved, the more difficult it is to defend,” IU Coach Kevin Wilson said. “And so whether it be throwing the ball to tailbacks, throwing the ball to your slot receivers or throwing outside to the tight ends.”
Going into week four of the season, Sudfeld has completed a pass to 13 different receivers.
Fourteen receivers caught balls in all of 2014.
“They’re very well-coached,” IU offensive coordinator Kevin Johns said about Wake Forest. “They have really active linebackers. They’re gonna stop the run.”
Assuming Wake Forest is able to contain junior running back Jordan Howard, the nation’s leading rusher with 507 yards, Johns said spreading the ball around will be a significant strategy in attacking the Demon Deacon defense.
The tight end group alone has surpassed its total number of combined receptions from the 2014 season, as it improved from 10 catches to 12 in just three weeks.
Senior tight end Michael Cooper leads the charge with six catches and 108 yards after having two catches for 25 yards last season.
“I think probably Cooper and (Danny) Friend have the most catches,” Wilson said. “And they are probably the least athletic. They are No. 3 and 4 on the athletic chain of tight ends. If you say who is the best pass catcher, you would say (Jordan) Fuchs one, (Anthony) Corsaro two. Yet the leading pass catchers are three and four.”
Junior receiver Ricky Jones currently leads the team in receptions with 16 and in yards with 368 , while playing in his first starting role of his career.
Starting on the opposite side of Jones is sophomore Simmie Cobbs, who has caught 10 passes for 169 yards.
Outside the two starting receivers, though, no other player has double-digit reception figures.
“It’s just kind of happening that way,” Johns said. “You try to play fast, you try to spread the field, and the ball just goes where it’s supposed to go regardless of who’s standing out there. I go back to the word balance. You can’t just key in on one receiver, so you hope that the defense has to guard the right side just as strongly as the left.”
With other weapons, such as junior receiver Mitchell Paige, freshman receiver Nick Westbrook and sophomore receiver Isaac Griffith, for the defense to defend, Howard also gets catches out of the backfield.
He has recorded six catches for 68 yards in three weeks.
“We have a lot of balance,” Sudfeld said. “The offensive line has been opening up a lot of holes, and when we get the run game going, it really opens up the passing game. Just like when we get the passing game open, it helps the run game.”
Heading to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Sudfeld knows that it will take all hands on deck in the passing game, as the Demon Decons have allowed just 125 passing yards per game this season.
“I love playing in front of our fans, but there’s something special about going with just your teammates, your coaches,” Sudfeld said. “It’s kind of an ‘us against the world.’ There’s kind of a level of camaraderie.”
