For the first time in nearly three decades, the Hoosiers have secured their sixth win of the season before the end of October.
With Saturday’s emotional 38-31 victory at Nebraska behind him, IU head coach Tom Allen said he feels relief.
“It feels kind of great to have that off the table,” Allen said. “Now we can just go back to the business of getting better every single week and trying to win our next football game.”
Allen joined his coordinators, select players and the media at Memorial Stadium on Monday to break down IU’s bowl-clinching win on the road and the team’s upcoming matchup at home with 1-6 Northwestern.
Here are three takeaways.
Allen reiterates Penix is their guy but is confident with Ramsey.
The Hoosiers’ ability to play through great adversity has been the team’s silver lining of its 6-2 start to this season, especially at quarterback.
Redshirt freshman Michael Penix Jr. won the rights to the starting quarterback position but suffered two injuries that have caused him to miss multiple games each.
When Penix isn’t a full go, Allen is just as confident in his next man up. Junior Peyton Ramsey started all 12 games under center for IU last season and leads all active FBS quarterbacks in career completion percentage with 67%.
Against the Cornhuskers, Ramsey threw for a career-high 351 yards, ran for 42 more and scored three touchdowns in the win.
“(Ramsey’s) character and leadership and production, when needed, has been impressive,” Allen said. “If Mike can't go, Peyton's going to go, and as we all know, Peyton's going to do a great job.”
Penix participated in practice last week and traveled to Nebraska but didn’t start or play. He’ll continue to be evaluated this week and could ultimately be another game-time decision. Ramsey has played in every game except the season-opener and the loss at Michigan State.
Philyor brings energy on and off the field.
Junior receiver Whop Philyor says people call him the energizer bunny, and that’s a role he embraces.
“I like seeing people smile,” Philyor said. “I just like keeping my team up. I don’t want anyone to have their head down.”
Philyor said it was hard to be a leader as a freshman, but he is continuously growing into the role as an upperclassmen.
For Philyor, if you’re going to lead by example, it never hurts to do it with fun. In the spirit of Halloween, the junior brought a Chucky doll with him on last weekend’s road trip. After the win, it made an appearance on sophomore running back Stevie Scott’s Instagram live feed.
“Chucky a bad man… we a bad football team,” Philyor said.
The Florida native recorded his second 14-catch game of the season while hauling in 178 receiving yards against Nebraska.
After making a long catch-and-run in the third quarter, Philyor got in the face of a Cornhusker and drew an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. Immediately, Allen approached his receiver.
“He didn't necessarily want to be talking to me right then after he got that penalty, but I was not going to let him walk away until I got the response that I thought I needed,” Allen said. “We trusted him to put him back in there.”
Thomas Allen and Simon Stepaniak highlight injury updates.
Sophomore linebacker Thomas Allen, son of IU’s head coach, went down twice Saturday and forced play to come to a brief halt. His father announced Monday that he’d be receiving season-ending surgery to repair his shoulder some time next week.
“It really breaks my heart,” Allen said. “He came back from an injury this past off-season and worked his tail off to get back.”
Allen totaled just 17 tackles this season through eight games following a standout freshman campaign. Allen said redshirt-freshman linebacker James Miller is next in line on the depth chart.
As for fifth-year offensive lineman Simon Stepaniak, Allen expects him to be back in the fold soon.
“Don't think it's anything long term at all,” Allen said. “He had some things late in the week that I didn't know about and just kind of came up on him. I think he’s going to be fine.”
