Indiana’s running back picture is starting to clear up, and Khobie Martin is the name Hoosier fans will want to keep an eye on.
For a stretch, the room was stretched thin enough that Indiana shifted freshman linebacker Henry Ohlinger over to running back before the Rutgers game. That move came after injuries piled up across the group. Two weeks ago, Turbo Richard, Lee Beebe, Jr., Khobie Martin and Sean Cuono were all on Indiana’s availability report, and those four are among just five scholarship backs on the roster.
The good news for Indiana is that things have already begun to turn back in the right direction. Richard, Beebe, Jr. and Cuono all ended up playing against Rutgers, and Martin is now trending toward a return as well.
“He’s getting close to returning,” Cignetti said Monday on the Triple Option podcast.
Martin has been sidelined since suffering multiple breaks in his right forearm in the first quarter of Week 1. He was hurt while pass blocking on his second snap of the season opener, and after the injury Curt Cignetti said he expected Martin back around midseason. That timeline now lines up with where Indiana is in the regular season.
The 6-foot, 210-pound Fishers, Indiana, native has been out for the first three Big Ten games, but his status is worth watching moving forward.
Indiana had big plans for Martin entering the season. He was coming off a strong 2025 campaign as a redshirt freshman, when he ran for 505 yards and six touchdowns on 78 carries. The Hoosiers opened 2026 expecting to rotate Martin with Richard and Beebe, Jr., and they’re still waiting to get back to that setup.
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Ohio State, meanwhile, is dealing with a longer injury list, and some of those absences were already visible in the win over Maryland. More issues surfaced during that game, adding to the questions along the Buckeyes offensive line and elsewhere. For Indiana, the matchup may come down to whether it can make that shortage matter before Ohio State has a chance to settle in and sort itself out. [Read more 🡒]