donaven mcculley

Michigan Football has a (largely) finalized coaching staff for the upcoming 2024 season and today marks the closing of the transfer portal window that began when Jim Harbaugh exited to the NFL. Changes may continue to rosters after spring ball, but today marks the point at which Michigan joins the rest of college football in terms of staff and roster stability, the dust settling on the changes of the winter period. That reality allows us to turn our attention to the rest of college football to see what's been going on elsewhere in the B1G, as we did last offseason. Just like last year's series, over the course of the next three pieces (we now have 17 teams to cover!) I will recap what transfer portal and NFL declarations have wrought upon Michigan's conference foes, in addition to any staff turnover. Today we are covering the six teams in what used to be the B1G East: 

Ohio State

EXITS

Ohio State lost a handful of impact players, but as a whole came out relatively unscathed from NFL Draft season (apparently due to an ambitious NIL effort to retain the roster). Elder statesmen like the LBs Tommy Eichenberg and Steele Chambers, as well as longtime S Josh Proctor, WR Xavier Johnson, OG Matthew Jones, RB Miyan Williams, and TE Cade Stover are out the door for a mix of eligibility exhaustion and NFL Draft reasons. These were players who'd been around a long time and ultimately felt it was time (or were forced) to move on, none of them being terribly surprising. 

Relatively few underclassmen took off, the only three notable names being QB Kyle McCord, whose transfer to Syracuse was well-publicized, and then DT Michael Hall Jr. and WR Marvin Harrison Jr.. The loss of Harrison cannot be understated because he was an exceptional player, but that was mostly priced in given MHJ's supreme draft position. Hall was the best pure pass rusher on OSU's DL (or at least the best get-off) in your author's opinion, but still had room to sharpen up as a run defender. Alas, it seems he will be rounding out his form at the next level, where an NFL team will have the chance to inject some legitimate pass rush skill into the middle of their defense. 

Hmm [Patrick Barron]

ACQUISITIONS 

The upshot of shelling out massively to bring the talented junior class back for one more crack at it is Ohio State had relatively few holes to fill in the portal. Most of their moves came on the offensive side of the ball, making one of the oddest transfer portal pickups in scooping up Alabama C Seth McLaughlin, quite possibly the worst snapper your author has ever seen. Maybe McLaughlin can succeed as a guard where he's not asked to snap the ball, but putting his bad snaps aside, McLaughlin was one of the weakest members of Alabama's OL as a blocker too. Strange. 

The skill position talent changed some, with OSU outsourcing its TE spot by raiding the in-state Ohio Bobcats for Will Kacmarek. He seems middling, PFF grades in the low 60s as a MAC TE. The bigger get was star RB Quinshon Judkins from Ole Miss, who bailed on the Rebels even as Ole Miss was doing their own version of crazy dropping bags on portal targets. Judkins, paired with TreVeyon Henderson, ought to give the Bucks an elite RB combo for the 2024 season. The key to it all on offense is new QB Will Howard, though we should mention 5* Julian Sayin, who "transferred" from Alabama after Nick Saban's retirement (Sayin had just barely enrolled at Bama). Sayin is a massive get for the future, but it is likely Howard who holds the keys to whether this all-in season ends with the ultimate prize. Howard was a solid starter at Kansas State, but whether he can win a national championship is very much to be determined.

Another name we should get on the record is Chip Kelly, the new offensive coordinator. Bill O'Brien was originally hired to fulfill this role, but BO'B bailed before he ever really got started, taking the Boston College head coaching job when that opened up. Kelly then quit on coaching UCLA (where he was seemingly on the verge of being fired) to take this one. Kelly should add new flavor to the Ohio State offense and seems better fit than Ryan Day to take advantage of the mobile Will Howard's skillset. Finally on defense the Buckeyes picked up Alabama star S Caleb Downs, finishing off their massive offseason of spending to build this roster. Downs is a very good player and rounds out what may be college football's best defense in 2024. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: all the other teams]

Michigan took a gut punch last weekend in East Lansing, but the season is not yet over and there is a game coming up this weekend (at least, that's what my handlers have told me). That game is slated to be against the Indiana Hoosiers, and their season has not gone as planned, to put it mildly. After last year represented the culmination of the Tom Allen era in Bloomington, a dazzling 6-1 record in the B1G (with the one loss being a one-score defeat in Columbus), reality has come crashing down hard on the Hoosiers this campaign. When IU enters the Big House on Saturday night, they will be fighting for their bowl eligibility life, sitting at 2-6 on the year. Many of the problems plaguing the team are on offense, with the Hoosiers going through QBs like Kleenex, and that's something we will examine in today's post: 

The Film: The QB issues severely narrowed our ability to have our choice of Indiana games. Michael Penix Jr. started the season but was injured against Penn State, forcing Jack Tuttle to take over. Tuttle then got hurt against Ohio State only a few weeks after that, making IU first turn to Grant Gremel, before then landing on Donaven McCulley. McCulley got his first career start last weekend against Maryland and Tom Allen has since confirmed that McCulley will be starting for the team this week as well. Thus, in order to properly scout the opposition's QB, we had to choose Maryland, which is unfortunate because Maryland has a terrible defense that is not comparable to Michigan's. The Hoosiers lost this game 38-35, a generally competitive game albeit one that the Terps had the lead in more or less wire to wire. 

Personnel: The chart. 

As previously stated, Donaven McCulley is now the starter at QB for IU. He's an undeniably talented QB, top 250 in the composite, and a prospect Indiana fans should be very excited about as a dual threat option. What they didn't want to have happen was to see McCulley thrust into action as a true freshman. But here we are. USC transfer and former five star Stephen Carr holds down the RB position as the option getting the vast majority of carries. Carr squeezed Tim Baldwin Jr. out of the backfield (and into the transfer portal), which has left Davion Ervin-Poindexter as the primary backup at RB. 

At WR we see Ty Fryfogle somehow still around for the Hoosiers, and he's the primary receiving target. Every other WR is way behind Fryfogle in catches, with Miles Marshall and slot Javion Swinton catching up the rear. The loss of DJ Matthews to an ACL tear earlier this season definitely has hurt the Hoosiers' pass-catching group. The other notable receiver is at the TE position, with another familiar face in multi-year starter Peyton Hendershot. He is an excellent receiver but a very poor blocker. IU does use two TE's on some occasions, and when they bring a second TE on the field, it's generally either AJ Barner or Matt Bjorson. Neither are major receiving threats though. 

The offensive line is a weak spot in Bloomington, as it often is. RT Caleb Jones is a RS Sr yet is the weakest position on the line and a real liability when it comes to keeping the QB upright. On the flip side, though, LT Luke Haggard is generally alright at his job. At guard, an injury to Mike Katic has forced Old Friend/New Enemy Zach Carpenter to start at RG and I thought he was okay in his first career start with the Hoosiers in this game. LG Matthew Bedford was up and down in the game I tracked, but curving for the fact that Maryland has one of the worst defenses that IU has seen this season, he's not great. The PFF scores back that up, and the cyan is thrown around his neck. I thought C Dylan Powell had a particularly poor game and was on the verge of cyan'ing him too, but decided to hold back because this is just one game and the narrative isn't as holistically negative on him as it is on others. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: So how'd starting a true freshman QB go for ya?]