Please share your thoughts, folks.
- I thought McCord was okay. There were a few plays that definitely made you think he could be the guy. The first that comes to mind was when he moved around, avoided pressure, then hit Egbuka along the sideline. You can certainly tell he has a live arm. Did not like him going the wrong way on what should have been a touchdown and the throw across his body (interception) was bad. The one long ball to Fleming should have been placed a lot better. I'd probably grade him a C+ or so.
- I wanted to see more of Devin Brown. Surprised we didn't get a few more drives.
- The left side of the offensive line was a problem. Josh Simmons is going to need to get a whole lot better. I didn't watch the right side very often so I can't comment (I'm also not an offensive line expert).
- I don't know what the answer is, but hopefully it's just a matter of Simmons getting better. If not then I have no idea if it would be Montgomery or Fryar or moving Jackson to LT or what. They've got a few weeks to figure out (though ND also doesn't have some crazy good pass rush).
- Right now the thought of Simmons trying to block Chop Robinson is downright terrifying.
- Never in a million years would anyone have guessed Stover would outgain Marv + Emeka today. He was damn good though. Props to him.
- Chip Trayanum looks like the best running back on the team. Henderson still doesn't have great vision, but in his defense there were unblocked backers coming right at him multiple times.
- The RB rotation was interesting. Not sure what was up with TreVeyon in the second half or maybe they just wanted to get the others more action.
- Julian Fleming was good from what I could tell. He seemed to get a ton of targets.
- If you had asked me if I'd prefer a 23-3 win or something like 47-37, I would definitely have gone with the former. There's certainly reason to believe the offense gets better. A disastrous defensive performance would have been extremely concerning.
- The defensive line rotation is still weird and annoying.
- Mike Hall is elite. I was immediately pissed off when he wasn't on the field for the very first snap of the game.
- I wanted more pressure. There were a few plays when JT got very close and that seemed to be a common theme last year as well. Had he not been held on the one play, he was going to get to the QB.
- I may have missed something, but Jack Sawyer seemed to be a ghost.
- Hero Kanu flashed late when he was in there.
- Linebackers and secondary were solid from what I could tell. I thought that late flag on Ransom was lame.
- The Malik Hartford talk was on the money. He is going to be a stud.
- Indiana's passing game is garbage so it's tough to take much away from this one.
- The defense gave up 153 yards of total offense. Can't complain about that.
- Solid job by Fielding.
- Special teams coverage needs to get better. It's not ideal to have your kicker and punter making tackles.
