FOOTBALL

Indiana Football Week 3 Stock Report: Who’s trending up? Who’s trending down?

Published

8 months ago

September 13, 2023

Taking a look at who from the Indiana football program has raised their stock and lowered their stock heading into week three. (Trevor Ruszkowski-USA TODAY Sports)

Indiana football moved to 1-1 on the season following its 41-7 win over Indiana State in week two. Now, it looks ahead to a key matchup against Louisville at Lucas Oil Stadium on Saturday.

The Hoosiers finally named a starting quarterback, going with Tayven Jackson, bringing a different vibe around the program heading into the weekend.

After week two of the season for Indiana, who is trending up? Who’s trending down? We take a look at some players and position groups here.

TRENDING UP

Tayven Jackson: This is no surprise. Nobody had a better past few days than Jackson. On Monday, Indiana football head coach Tom Allen announced that Tayven Jackson would be the starter moving forward. This comes after he got his first career start on Friday. He was 18-of-21 for 236 yards and a rushing touchdown against the Sycamores.

Indiana football finished with 558 yards of total offense on Friday night, the most since its performance against Western Kentucky in 2021. What helped win him the job was his poise during live action.

“Actually, I think he plays better than he practices in regards to even some executional things,” Allen said of Jackson. “Some guys are like that, when the lights are on and the pressure’s on and you’ve got to make those throws and you’ve got to make plays and people are in your face, you’re getting hit … But Tayven, just needed to have the game-day poise and execution was critical. And gotta do it on game day. That’s where the final piece of the evaluation for me since they had not had that experience in the past. That’s where I feel like Tayven was able to separate himself there.”

Jackson’s 85.7 completion percentage in week two finished third on the Indiana single-game passing charts. He also graded as the fifth overall player among all power five quarterbacks in Pro Football Focus’ week two ratings.

“I go out there and just play football … I can only control my effort and attitude. So I just go out there and play free and play my game,” Jackson said. “I feel like when I step on the field, I just let everything go and just play free. I don’t know how to explain it.”

Omar Cooper Jr: Cooper played a very limited role against Ohio State but saw his breakout performance come in week two. He finished the game with seven receptions for 101 yards. He also had a long of 31 yards and a game-high of 10 targets. He was named the offensive player of the game for the Indiana football program.

After EJ Williams and Cam Camper left the game due to injuries, Cooper slid in and made an immediate impact for the Indiana football offense. At 6-foot-1 and 200 pounds, he has a great combination of quickness, strength and strong hands — all three aspects that were showcased on Friday.

“You know, so he just — he made some contested tight windowed catches, strong-handed catches, and then went and got some yards,” Allen said. “So love his emergence. We need that. We’ll need everybody to help us win.”

Cooper came to Indiana as a four-star recruit but played sparingly as a freshman, keeping his redshirt intact. He came into week two with no career catches. But, Cooper had been trending up all throughout fall camp and finally flashed his big-play potential.

Running Backs: After a disappointing performance in week one, this group bounced back in a big way and were really able to showcase just how versatile they are and can be.

Indiana had five rushing touchdowns against Indiana State, the most by an IU team since it had six against Maryland in 2016. In total, IU finished with 214 rushing yards with a 5.1 average.

Jaylin Lucas led that room with 88 yards on 10 carries and two touchdowns. He also added four receptions for 39 yards. Josh Henderson totaled 115 total yards on 15 touches and a touchdown and Christian Turner had a rushing touchdown as well.

“The O-line kept their foot on the pedal. They made it easy for us,” Henderson said following IU’s win. “I was telling the guys, I’m just the one getting the carries. I’m blessed to be getting the carries. You could throw anyone in that running back room, and they will produce when the line is dominating like that.”

It was a lackluster week one outing offensively, but week two was a different story. Walt Bell and the Indiana offense opened up and looked smoother, more in rhythm and more explosive, and a large part of that was due to the running backs.

Defense: How can you not have the entire defensive unit as a group trending up. The Indiana defense has been phenomenal through two games and were exceptionally good on Friday night.

In total, it gave up just 93 total yards on the night, the second fewest yards allowed by an Indiana defense since 1996.

“They didn’t even have 100 yards of offense. So that’s hard to do. I don’t care who it is. And so, I’m still ticked about the fact that we didn’t get a shutout,” Allen said. ” … I thought the second half response was excellent. I think we gave up 27 yards the whole half. So just want to see us finish. And I thought we did defensively. So it wasn’t perfect, but pretty dang good.”

Through two weeks, Indiana ranks fourth in the Big Ten in terms of defensive efficiency and second in third down defense among other very good categories.

More: Quick Hitters – Early breakdown and initial thoughts on Louisville

TRENDING DOWN

Entire Coaching Staff: This is a bit of a stretch but the major deficiency that this team has is with penalties and that comes down to an undisciplined coaching staff.

Through two weeks, Indiana football ranks 13th in the Big Ten with 15 penalties for 135 yards. On Friday, Indiana finished with seven penalties for 60 yards — including two ineligible men downfield penalties, a catch interference penalty after a punt and two roughing the kicker calls.

Most of the penalties right now are ‘stupid’ penalties according to Tom Allen. Those are all fixable mistakes, but they need to be fixed asap.

“When you talk about the aggressive nature of some of them and also just the elimination of the two running into the kickers, unacceptable, can’t happen,” Allen said. “They were stupid when I mentioned it the other night and they’re still stupid. And then kicking the ball out of bounds, that just can’t happen. So that will be corrected.

MOST TO PROVE

Walt Bell: Second straight week putting offensive coordinator Walt Bell here, and rightly so. After a very disappointing offensive performance in week one, week two brought better results. But, it was against an FCS opponent that Indiana was light years more skilled than. Now, going against Louisville will be another very good test to see where the offense is at — now with a clear starting QB.

While there are some potential injury concerns over wide receivers EJ Williams and Cam Camper — something we won’t know more on until the Big Ten releases its pregame injury report — there are more than enough playmakers on the roster to be very productive. We saw running backs used more in the passing game in week two, more use of quick throws near the line of scrimmage and an overall more versatile play-calling scheme.

“I think we have a deep team. I think we have a lot of receivers who can make plays, it showed up tonight (Friday). Have a lot of running backs that can make plays, showed up tonight. We have a lot of guys at tight-end who can play and help us and do different things,” Allen said. “… it was what we needed to do, was to be able to be crisp and clean and sharp.”

“We are nowhere near close to perfect,” Bell added. “At the end of the day, we left a lot of routine plays on the field.”

Indiana now will be facing near or above talent level than what it has on its roster for the remainder of the season, so Saturday will be a very good test to see if the offensive performance from week two is legit … or if it was more of a fluke.