Before each Ohio State game, Eleven Warriors catches up with a media member who covers the opposing team to get his or her perspective on the Buckeyes' upcoming opponent.
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3:30 p.m. – SATURDAY, SEP. 2 MEMORIAL STADIUM BLOOMINGTON, INDIANA |
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CBS CBS SPORTS |
As the Buckeyes prepare to open their season against Indiana on Saturday, we’re joined by Zach Osterman of the Indianapolis Star to learn more about the Hoosiers, their quarterback competition, how they’re preparing for OSU and the return of IU wideout Cam Camper.
Some questions and answers have been edited for length and clarity.
Alright Zach, let’s not bury the lede. Who’s starting for Indiana... at kicker.
Osterman: I actually feel more confident about that than I do the bigger question.
Joking aside, what do you make of Tom Allen revealing he’s picked a quarterback between Tennessee transfer Tayven Jackson and redshirt freshman Brendan Sorsby, but declining to announce it before Saturday?
Osterman: There’s the part of me, especially as a reporter, that’s just like ‘Just announce it already.’ I’m happy to say that and I don’t think that’s anything controversial. On the other hand, I don’t really buy into those who say this is a bad look or it dampens fan interest or whatever. I just don’t think this stuff matters a ton, ultimately. I think you should put it out, I don’t think there’s any harm in it and the competitive advantage in it is negligible, frankly.
Also when you’re a program like Indiana, only three times in the last 13 years have you managed to go with the same starting quarterback for all 12 or 13 games. I’d also point out Tom Allen’s not the only one doing it, I don’t think Nick Saban has announced a starting quarterback and I think there’s a couple NFL franchises that said they’re not announcing a quarterback for Week 1. This is hardly unique to Indiana, but it’s one of those things that winds up becoming more fodder for Twitter conversations and message board threads in terms of whether it’s a good idea or not rather than its long-term impact.
Of the two, which do you expect to start? Do you think both could play or do you think it will just be one guy?
Osterman: Expect to start, I genuinely do not know. If you made me pick, it would be like a 51-49 to Tayven Jackson. But I’m not going to be surprised by whoever jogs out there on Saturday. I just don’t think that either one separated from the other enough. I think they’re slightly different quarterbacks.
Sorsby is probably a little better throwing in the pocket, Jackson is probably a little bit better on the move and may be a little more athletic. If Indiana wants to bring option concepts in they showed last season, he may be your guy. But it’s not like either of these guys ran an option offense in high school. It really is just tissue paper between them, so if I’m picking I’ll lean towards Jackson, but that’s a 51-49 thing. I don’t think both will play by design. If one gets hurt obviously the other will play, if it’s just an absolute disaster offensively I suppose it’s possible the other could play.
But Tom Allen doesn’t want his quarterbacks looking over their shoulder and him to have a quick trigger. The only time I can remember him pulling a quarterback for flatly performance reasons was Richard Lagow in his first year. That probably had less to do with Lagow’s performance than Tom Allen believing Peyton Ramsey’s skill set fit more of what he wanted out of the quarterback position. He won’t play two by design and I’d be surprised if he plays two out of some sort of punitive decision around performance. Whoever starts is going to get the game and is going to get the foreseeable future to bed themselves in and prove they can be IU’s starter.
There’s been a lot of transfers to Indiana in the past few years. Of the new faces, who do you expect to make the most impact from the transfer side?
Osterman: The biggest one other than quarterback is the defensive line. I think Indiana has improved fairly substantially on its defensive line. That’s going to come down largely to transfers and guys like Marcus Burris, Andre Carter, Philip Blidi, LeDarrius Cox and Anthony Jones. There will be some redshirt freshmen and sophomores mixed up in there, but if you were to make a two-deep of that line right now, it would be heavily influenced by transfers. I think importantly for Indiana in this game, guys that are bigger, longer and more athletic than what Indiana has had the last couple of years. Also, guys that have played at the Power Five level. Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oregon. Guys who won’t be overwhelmed by the physical traits of the guys trying to block them, they’ll have seen something like this before.
The only one of them that’s not a Power Five transfer that will see a lot of snaps is Andre Carter from Western Michigan, who had 13.5 tackles for loss and seven sacks last year. He may wind up being the best player on Indiana’s team in general. The point is that group is probably the most transfer-influenced and one of the most important because one of the few ways I can see Indiana keeping this competitive on Saturday is exploiting a fairly unproven offensive line/quarterback combination and maybe getting Ohio State out of rhythm offensively early.
It does seem like one of the few guys that has a solidified position on the roster is wide receiver Cam Camper, who will be making a return to the field after tearing his ACL last October. How big of a lift for Indiana will it be to have him back out there?
Osterman: I won’t say he was as good as any receiver in the Big Ten last year because he wasn’t, but he was very much in that mold of best of the rest outside of the really top end of the league. He was having a really good first year as a JUCO transfer before he tore his ACL. He’s a very consistent player and I think that’s important for a young quarterback. His routes are consistently good and his hands are consistently good. He’s really good eight to 15 yards, so you can run him in a lot of different routes and have success. You want to tame expectations for a guy a little bit coming off a knee injury, but he has been in practices, he’s been tackled, jumping off the knee, all those different things. Even if he’s steady and keeps you level, that’s important.
Reading one of your articles earlier this week, Tom Allen said he’s been watching high school film of both Kyle McCord and Devin Brown this week. Both will play on Saturday, how do you think the Hoosiers will handle preparing for two quarterbacks?
Osterman: I think to Allen’s point at looking at high school film, putting myself in Tom Allen’s shoes, I think there becomes a point where you stop worrying about the quarterback because when you have to dig as deep as high school film or a small handful of snaps in college when you’re having to dig that deep, it can be easy to tie yourself in knots. I’m sure Indiana will be studying McCord more closely now. But I do wonder if there’s an extent to where you stop worrying about the quarterbacks and worry more about this is what we do and this is what Ohio State’s scheme presents.
Statistically, Indiana had one of the worst secondaries a year ago. What do you make of Indiana having to face one of the best wide receiving corps in the nation right off the bat in Week 1?
Osterman: I think it’s going to be difficult. That secondary was really very experienced across the last three years, and they’re pretty much all gone. There’s a small handful remaining, Noah Pierre and Josh Sanguinetti are still around. But you’re going to see a lot of transfers and your rotation at cornerback will probably be two transfers and two redshirt freshmen.
That’s where Indiana’s defensive line play has got to be impactful in this game because for the first time in eight years in Bloomington, Tom Allen doesn’t have a very experienced secondary. That had been something he’s been able to rely on for a long time. Kind of against convention for a long time, his defense has often sort of worked back to front rather than front to back in terms of his secondary and in some cases his linebackers being the biggest playmakers and game-changers. That allowed him to be more creative up front.
But this, if it works, is going to be a much more conventional defense where it starts up front, better at the line of scrimmage, stop the run, force the pass, create pressure and capitalize on mistakes. That has to be the formula for Indiana not just against Ohio State, but for the first part of the season.
How do you see this contest playing out and what’s your score prediction if you’ve got one?
Osterman: I think it’s hard for me to see Indiana winning this game. If Indiana is improved along the defensive line and frankly the offensive line the way I think it might be, I wouldn’t be surprised if Ohio State has a few hiccups. If Indiana had a game not unlike the Minnesota game Ohio State opened with a few years ago where C.J. Stroud opened up as a new starter, that would be almost the best-case scenario.
That Minnesota team, it was the season opener, it was a highly-ranked Ohio State team, and in the end Ohio State had over 500 yards of offense and a lot of points and won the game, but Minnesota scored 31 and got to come out of the game feeling good about the things it had done in different places and proved some things to itself. That team ripped off six wins in its next seven games and wound up winning nine games that year.
I don’t think Indiana will win nine games this year to be clear, but maybe Indiana can do some good things against Ohio State and soothe some of the rough edges around itself. And also recognize playing Ohio State Week 1 means you don’t play them Weeks 2 through 13. And the biggest challenge of a home game you have on your schedule is out of your way by Labor Day. There’s some value in that for a young team.
Having said all that, whatever weaknesses Ohio State may have relative to its expectations annually, Indiana’s weaknesses on paper would seem to play more directly into Ohio State’s strengths talking about the secondary and the stoutness and experience of Ohio State’s defense. Unless one of these quarterbacks is head and shoulders better than I thought, I think it will be difficult for either of them Saturday. It’s hard to imagine Indiana having enough bullets to really keep up for all four quarters. I think I threw a prediction out there something like 48-20. I’m loath to make predictions because I always feel I get them wrong, but if Indiana covers in this game, that would represent a win of some kind for Indiana.
