Indiana and Ohio State saw Jeremiah Smith’s quietest outing of the season from very different angles.
Curt Cignetti framed it as a defensive win for the Hoosiers. Ryan Day pointed to missed calls that, in his view, helped Indiana keep the star receiver in check.
Smith finished with four catches for a season-low 68 yards in Ohio State’s 19-15 win over Indiana, far below his season average of 152.6 yards per game. Most of that damage came on a 38-yard touchdown early in the fourth quarter.
On Thursday night, Cignetti talked about the performance on his weekly radio show and agreed when host Don Fischer said Indiana limited Smith to “one significant play” at Yogi’s Bar & Grill.
"True," Cignetti said to laughs from the crowd at Yogi's Bar & Grill.
Cignetti said the Hoosiers leaned into coverage help on Smith and mixed in plenty of double teams. He also said Indiana made stopping Ohio State’s passing game a priority by trying to speed up the Buckeyes’ quarterbacks before they could get Smith involved. Ohio State was pressured on 14 of its 38 dropbacks.
"They asked me the best way to stop Jeremiah Smith, get to the quarterback before he can throw it," Cignetti said of his pregame interview with Jenny Taft. "That always works."
He also described the touchdown as a play Indiana could live with.
"The one touchdown pass was an underthrown ball," Cignetti said. "Good for them."
A few hours earlier, Day had his own take during his weekly conversation with Paul Keels and Jim Lachey on Ohio State’s radio broadcast. He acknowledged that Indiana used different looks to take away Smith, including cloud coverage to his side, a corner down and a half-field safety, along with man-to-man and collision techniques designed to keep him from getting clean releases.
"They had a couple different ways to cloud his side, put a corner down and a half-field safety there," Day said. "They had some things where they would play man-to-man, just take another guy and literally just run him over, you saw some of that. They worked hard on collisioning him, so he doesn't get free runs down the field."
But Day said the film showed more than just good coverage. He said there were two plays where Ohio State did not get calls it should have received.
"Although he only had four catches, there were two of them there that we didn't get calls (on) that we really had opportunities to do something with," Day said.
Day said he normally sends about 10 plays to the league office for review after a game, but that number went up after the win over Indiana. On his show, he said he was frustrated by what he saw as defenses getting away with penalties on Smith that might have been called against a smaller or less physical receiver.
"I don't want to break any (confidentiality) of what goes on, I think it's fair to say, we all saw, you can see the still pictures," Day said. "Those are game-changing plays. I know they are working hard to make sure it's right and get it right, but there were a handful of plays in that game that were certainly big plays."
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