ANN ARBOR – As rain fell and wind blew, Indiana football’s proverbial ship sunk speedily in Saturday afternoon’s 52-7 loss to Michigan inside ‘The Big House.’
The Hoosiers (2-4, 0-3) started in promising fashion, emerging from a week off with confidence and intent. By the end of the first quarter, they led the No. 2 Wolverines (7-0, 4-0) by a touchdown and held a 124-yard edge in yards gained.
Over the final 45 minutes of game action, the Wolverines rattled off 52 unanswered points and left Indiana searching for solutions.
The most pressing concern moving forward is identifying who to roll with at quarterback, a problem Indiana head coach Tom Allen thought he solved earlier this season by anointing redshirt freshman Tayven Jackson as the starter.
But Jackson struggled mightily in Ann Arbor, completing only seven-of-13 passes for 52 yards while tossing two interceptions and fumbling deep in his own territory during his four drives. The other option, redshirt freshman Brendan Sorsby, wasn’t much better, going six-of-15 for 44 yards while adding 30 rushing yards and losing a fumble of his own across seven possessions.
The performance was all too similar to Indiana’s season-opening 23-3 loss to Ohio State, when Jackson and Sorsby combined to complete only nine-of-21 attempts for 82 yards while splitting action. At that point, Allen was still in the evaluation phase of deciding between the two young passers and giving both game action made sense for the process.
That was game one. This is game six. The same problem still exists.
Neither Jackson nor Sorsby have done enough to cement their starting candidacy, but the quarterback carousel isn’t helping either of them – just ask junior receiver Donaven McCulley, who started under center for the Hoosiers just two years ago.
“It’s really hard to get yourself in a routine and get other guys in a routine,” McCulley said postgame. “I’m not sure why they flip-flopped. I think it’s hard to get into a routine when you’re doing that.”
After the game, Allen said Indiana will pick a starter next week and won’t rotate when Rutgers comes to Bloomington for a noon kickoff Oct. 21, but he expressed the same sentiment after naming Jackson the starter before Week 3.
The age-old adage is that if you have two quarterbacks, you really have no quarterbacks – and this appears to be the troubling reality for Indiana.
“I wanted to see one of them step up, and I don’t feel like that happened today,” Allen said.
Elsewhere, concern is mounting around the Hoosiers’ defense, which started the season off strong but has faltered lately, allowing 96 points over the past two games. Indiana held Michigan to just 17 total yards of offense in the first quarter but gave up 390 yards over the final three quarters.
The Wolverines scored on their final eight full drives, with seven of those being touchdowns. They had a four-possession stretch of finding the endzone in less than three minutes each, with the Hoosiers simply having no response.
Indiana sixth-year senior linebacker Aaron Casey, who tied for the team lead with seven tackles, noted Michigan adjusted their game plan after a slow start and the Hoosiers weren’t disciplined in the aftermath.
Casey explained that the defense allowed too many explosive plays to the Wolverines.
“Because eyes sometimes weren’t in the right spot,” Casey said. “The eye-candy got to us sometimes. Guys were out of their gaps or letting guys go. We know how we can play, so just do that for all four quarters.”
In the lead-up to Saturday’s game, Indiana made structural changes in how it approaches practice, with more reps of starters versus starters. Allen and the players hoped the new process would generate faster starts, and it certainly did – but now, the Hoosiers have to figure out ways to sustain it.
For a quarter, Indiana held its own – if not outperformed – one of college football’s best teams. But when adversity struck, the Hoosiers had no response. They’ve lost three of their last four games and have just one win in 11 tries against Big Ten foes since beating Illinois in the season opener last year.
Just as discouraging, Indiana’s back at square one in the quarterback battle and has a defense that’s becoming increasingly prone to allowing big plays.
The season is just now at the halfway point, and the Hoosiers are left with two options – find answers and respond or continue letting the wind push its boat off course. After Saturday afternoon’s showing, the latter certainly feels the most likely.
Follow reporters Matt Press (@MattPress23) and Dalton James (@DaltonMJames) and columnist Daniel Flick (@ByDanielFlick) for updates throughout the Indiana football season.
