ty fryfogle

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?]

Now we get to part three of our series ranking opposing teams that Michigan will see on their 2021 schedule based on positional group. So far we've covered QB and RB, and today we arrive on the receivers. For receivers, we're talking about both WR and TE, but not RB's who catch passes. They were included in our last piece on RB's specifically. As always, this ranking is based on a mixture of both star players who headline the positional group, as well as the quality of depth, since injuries and football go together like peanut butter and jelly. At the top of the list, well, you know what's coming: 

1. Ohio State 

Yep. Because Ryan Day has been attending Tom Izzo's classes on how to hold the grandparents of key players hostage as a way to coerce them to return to school, the Buckeyes returned Chris Olave, despite him being considered a lock to go in the first round. Olave was a nondescript freshman who I didn't even have on my spotting board when I broadcasted the 2018 Michigan-Ohio State game on the radio, a game that then saw Olave torch Michigan for two TD catches + blocking a punt that was returned by Sevyn Banks for a TD. My reaction when the first TD pass happened was to furiously comb through the roster and look for the number 17 because my overriding thought was "who the hell was that guy?". Well, nearly three years later and Michigan fans— and B1G fans broadly— are very aware of who Olave is. After that coming out party, he caught 48 passes for 840 yards in 2019 and then 50 passes for 729 yards and seven scores last season in just seven games. Olave's blazing speed and NCAA production made him seem guaranteed to depart to the NFL... until he came back to Columbus. As a senior this fall, you can pretty much guarantee Olave to be 1st team All-B1G again so long as he's healthy. 

But what makes this group so good is the fact they also returned Garrett Wilson, who caught 43 passes for 723 yards and six touchdowns last season, en route to also being 1st team All-B1G. Wilson was a true sophomore in 2020, so Day didn't need to abduct Wilson's grandma to get him to return to OSU. Wilson had the honors of torching Michigan in 2019 and both he and Olave are hyper athletic, lightning fast receivers with the ability to stretch the field vertically and blow by 99% of NCAA CB's. That tandem is probably the best WR tandem in the country, but they also bring back TE Jeremy Ruckert, who isn't used all that heavily but has the combo of talent and size to be a mismatch for most defenses. Oh, and OSU's next three WR's on the depth chart are all five stars, sophomores Julian Fleming and Jaxon Smith-Njigba, as well as true freshman Emeka Egbuka. And just for kicks, the Buckeyes have Marvin Harrison Jr., son of that Marvin Harrison, farther down on the depth chart. 

This positional group both has the wickedly good talent at the top, and the quality depth, and is a school with a track record of churning out NFL WR's (Michael Thomas,Terry McLaurin, etc.). They were #1 on our list by a wide, wide margin. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: Progressively less speedy dudes]