Nick Saban thinks Indiana is on the verge of looking like the team that’s been tearing through the season.
Speaking Friday on The Pat McAfee Show, the former Alabama coach said the No. 4 Hoosiers are ready to “start showing their true colors here and really start dominating people,” with College GameDay headed to Bloomington for Saturday’s matchup against Minnesota.
Saban’s confidence starts on defense. Indiana’s front has been the engine behind a 7-1 start and a 4-1 mark in Big Ten play, and he made it clear that’s the part of the roster that caught his eye.
“They have a really, really good defensive team,” Saban said. “They’ve been able to get a lot of tackles for loss, lots of sacks, stopped the run pretty well.
They’ve been able to get turnovers. So this is a really good Indiana defensive team.”
The numbers back that up. Indiana has piled up 21 sacks and 39 tackles for loss in five Big Ten games, both conference highs. That pressure showed up again last week when the Hoosiers shut Michigan out of the end zone, picked up four sacks and two takeaways, then sealed a 13-6 overtime win in Ann Arbor by stopping Tommy Carr’s fourth-down pass at the Indiana 13.
Saban also has a personal connection to the man leading the program. Curt Cignetti coached under him at Alabama as his first receivers coach and recruiting coordinator, and Saban said Cignetti has always “made it easy for the quarterback.”
Indiana’s offense has been a little bumpier over the last two games, and Saban didn’t ignore that. The Hoosiers put up just 28 points combined in the loss to Ohio State and the win over Michigan, and he pointed to that stretch as the one area that could keep them from reaching their ceiling right away.
“They’ve struggled a little bit on offense to score points,” Saban said.
Josh Hoover, the TCU transfer who stepped in for Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza, opened the year on fire with 15 touchdown passes and no interceptions through five games. But the last two outings have been much rougher.
He went 20 of 40 for 296 yards and lost a fumble against Ohio State, then was 8 of 18 for 81 yards with an interception at Michigan while dealing with an injury. Cignetti said the offense “struggled, to say the least,” and the staff talked about going to backup Grant Wilson in the second half.
Even so, Saban isn’t ready to write off that side of the ball. He believes Indiana has enough around Hoover to be dangerous.
“I don’t think that you can replace Fernando,” Saban said. “I think you have to go do what you do and do it well.
I think Nick Marsh has played well for them. Becker is a good receiver.
Are they as explosive as they were a year ago? Probably not.
But I think they have enough tools to be a really, really effective offensive team.”
Marsh, the Michigan State transfer, earned AP national player of the week honors after a 187-yard, two-touchdown performance in the 20-17 win at Nebraska. Charlie Becker gives Hoover another big-play option on the outside, and Saban said he expects the group to “take off here toward the end of the year.”
He also sees the Hoosiers’ schedule as a reason to expect more. Indiana has gone nine straight weeks without a bye before its only open date on Nov. 7, and Saban thinks that grind may have shown up in recent weeks.
“They’ve played how many games each week in a row? Like seven or eight games?”
Saban said. “And without a bye week in there, without some time to give your players a little time to recover, sometimes that affects your performance a little bit.
So coming out of a bye week, I look for them to really hit the next gear.”
Cignetti said Monday he expects Hoover to be “fine and better this week.”
Minnesota arrives as the final hurdle before Indiana gets that break. The Gophers are 5-2 overall and 3-1 in the Big Ten, coming off a 13-10 win over Iowa on Luke Drzewiecki’s 46-yard field goal as time expired after forcing four turnovers. Minnesota is seventh in the latest Big Ten power rankings, five spots behind Indiana.
After the bye, Indiana’s path gets even more interesting: USC comes to Bloomington, the Hoosiers visit Washington, and the regular season ends with Purdue in the Old Oaken Bucket game. Minnesota at Indiana kicks off Saturday at 3:30 p.m. ET on CBS.
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