Indiana May Have ALREADY Solved What People Thought Was Their Biggest Problem

0:00This is Belie, one network, every topic, everywhere. Indiana's biggest offseason problem was supposed to be obvious. How in the world would you replace the highest min trophy winning quarterback without taking a major step backward? Now those people don't know Kirkson Eddie. Yeah, on this show, we do. And after game one, I think everybody's found out. I think Kirkson Eddie may already have an answer for many people's not great interpretation. So on this episode of The Big Ten Huddle, we're talking about Josh Hoover's first start at Indiana. How it looked a whole lot more comfortable than a quarterback replacing Fernando Mendoza probably had any right to look at. And we're presented. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry. Now I'm not saying Hoover is the next Mendoza or anything like that. After one game against North Texas, that would be ridiculous. OK. But I do think the conversation around Indiana might need to change because Hoover did not look like a quarterback.

1:02Indiana was trying to hide. He looked like a quarterback. Indiana was willing to build around. And if that continues, the biggest reason people had for believing Indiana would take a step backward might already be disappearing. Again, it was never a thing for us on this show, but for other people, it's proving them wrong. So let's establish what Hoover did in the game. Indiana beat North Texas 52 to 16. Hoover completed 13 of 16 passes for 231 yards, four touchdowns, and zero interceptions. 81% completion rate. That's fantastic. The average nearly 18 yards per completion in Indiana did not need him throwing the ball 40 or 45 times to get there. His first completion as Indiana's quarterback went for a touchdown in Nick Marsh, a sweet grab, little one-handed grab, back shoulder. Kirkston and he still loves the back shoulder. Who would have thought? Mike Shanahan. Billy Becker caught two touchdown passes as well. Davian Chandler caught another, so this was not one receiver carrying the passing game.

2:05Or everybody else disappeared. Hoover found seven different receivers on only 13 completions. Indiana was able to create explosive offense with different players and Hoover looked completely comfortable distributing the football to some very talented receivers. Hoover took a nasty face-master in the game as well. This was probably one of my favorite parts. Came up bleeding and he stayed in the game and finished the position by throwing a touchdown. And I thought to myself, that's why Signeti wanted this dude. That's why he wants him. Again, I'm not turning this into some dramatic toughness speech or anything, but I do think that's the kind of stuff that shows why Signeti wanted him. But for a quarterback, making his first start as an a new school, replacing the most decorated quarterback Indiana has ever had, that is a pretty good early sign that the moment was not overwhelming him. He's due like the video if you liked it the moment was overwhelming him, help us out here at the Big Ten Huddled. Because this was always the question with Indiana. Not talent, not certainly not coaching, not whether cooks in any sense, forgot how to

3:06build a football team, some of those questions that people had were preposperated, so I didn't entertain those. The question that was somewhat entertaining, but we didn't completely agree with, was the quarterback, right? Because Fernando Mendoza, he wins the highest many, leaves for the NFL and now Indiana has to do the hardest thing in college football. He's a great quarterback while allowing everything around him, without, without, without allowing everything around him to fall apart. That's what makes Hoover so important this season. Indiana does not need him to become Mendoza, nobody's asking him to be that, that might actually be the biggest mistake he could do is, is trying to be who Mendoza was. They need Hoover to be good enough that the entire offense does not have to change because Mendoza is gone. And after game one, that looks like the case, right? Let me add something to this because Hoover, I do think this is a legitimate conversation. Hoover is currently plus 2200 on fan duel to win the Heisman trophy. I actually think those are really interesting odds. You have other quarterbacks getting plenty of early season hype.

4:07I'm not sitting here telling you Hoover should suddenly be the Heisman favorite after North Texas, but 2200 plus 2200 on a quarterback, playing for the defending national champions in this offense after opening with four touchdown passes and zero interceptions. I really like those odds because if Indiana keeps winning and Hoover keeps putting up efficient numbers, he's going to enter that conversation whether people like it or not. And right now, I think that he's put himself in a little bit of that conversation. Let's see on Sunday, when people start talking about it more, I think he's going to be in there maybe more than some people realize. But the Heisman piece is almost secondary. The bigger story is what his performance suggests about Indiana itself. I think there are three things underneath Hoover's stat line that matter more than just the four touchdowns or anything. The first one, this is on a stat line, so never mind knows this, but no interceptions. No interceptions. This one is huge. Hoover was never lacked arm talent or production.

5:08The concern with him has been turnovers. That's what Indiana had to clean up. This is where dignity deserves credit. Indiana does not need Hoover playing hero ball. They do not need him trying to create something on every snap. They need him making the correct decisions, getting the football to good players and allowing the offense to work against North Texas. That's exactly what happened, right? 13 completions. Four touchdown passes, zero interceptions. Think about the efficiency here. Think about how efficient he was and how he could be so efficient because of the run game that Indiana had. Also because of the field position that Indiana enjoyed so much. Almost one out of every three completions ended up in the end zone. That's not normal. It might be normal for blue bloods and stuff like that. It's not normal for college football. And maybe there's some Indiana fans is getting normal to you because you just had the Heisman trophy winner this past season. If Indiana can get the explosive side of Hoover without the turnover side showing up nearly

6:12as often, now we have a completely different conversation. That is a proof bucket number one type of thing right there, decision making. The second thing is the receiving options. That's not Hoover dropping back and desperately looking for one star player every time. No, he's got a bevy of them. He's got Nick Marsh. He's got Charlie Becker. He's got Davey and Chandler who scored this time as well. That matters because replacing Mendoza was never supposed to be only about finding another quarterback. Indiana had to rebuild pieces around the quarterback too. What you want to see early is whether there's actually chemistry. Can Hoover get through his progressions? Can different receivers win? Can Indiana punish a defense that decides to maybe try to take one guy away or another guy away, right? In game one, the answer was yes. And that's what makes life so much easier for Josh Hoover is because of how many different options he has.

7:12Now, I doesn't take anything away from him. A quarterback replacing a Heisman trophy winner does not need the offense asking to be Superman every Saturday. And it's true that that Fernando Mendoza didn't have to be Superman every Saturday. Whether some plays when he had to come up big or he had to respond to a mistake, certainly. And I think Josh Hoover can do that too because he has options. He has a fleet of good players, an offensive line, all of these players around him. Indiana appears to have maybe not everything Hoover needs, but probably everything Hoover needs. And then there's the important third thing which I think might be the most important. That is that Hoover looked better than Mendoza did in the season opener. That's right. Hoover was 13 to 16. Mendoza was 18 for 31 against Old Dominion. Hoover threw for 231 yards. Mendoza threw for 193. Hoover threw four touchdown passes. Mendoza threw none. Hoover wasn't sacked once and Mendoza was sacked once. This is what Hoosier fans were hoping for.

8:14This is what Hoosier fans were talking about in the off season. Indiana loses Mendoza and there's seemingly no drop off, at least in the first game standpoint. The explosive passing game didn't disappear. Indiana wasn't too conservative because they didn't trust the new quarterback. Those things did not happen. Indiana scored 52 points for Pete's sake, right? And they did it while running only 46 offensive plays because they were so explosive because they were able to do all these things. North Texas actually possessed the ball far more than 37 minutes, right, or far more with 37 minutes. Indiana still scored 52. That is crazy efficiency. And that is why I think the box score is actually totally misleading here. If you look at totally yardage, because North Texas did in fact finish with slightly more yardage than Indiana. So if you saw only that number, you might think Indiana struggled and they just got lucky with some puck returns or kick returns, but they did not. That's not what happened here. Indiana averaged almost eight yards per play.

9:15They created explosive plays. They did not turn the ball over when the opportunities came. They were crushed, they were crushed, they were crushed, they were in. That is much more important to me than winning some total yardage contest or something like that. So after one game, do I think Indiana has completely replaced Fernando Mendoza? No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm not saying that he's completely replaced him, right? Game one, he looked better than Mendoza did, but that's setting the bar incorrectly, I think. Mendoza won the Heisman, right? You don't need to just assume the next guy will duplicate that and win the Heisman for you, but I am buying Josh Hoover as the answer at quarterback here, right? And I'm probably buying it more after the game than, you know, I'm expected to in some ways because it is North Texas and that's what everybody will say. But Indiana did not ask him to just survive. They showed they trusted him and he answered every single time that they did. They let him play and Hoover rewarded them with four touchdowns and no turnovers.

10:17What is the key to all of this to me? If you told Indiana fans before the season, your new quarterback seemed to complete more than 80% of the passes, throw for four touchdowns and avoid interceptions and win by 36 in this first start, everybody would take that. And actually, you know, what, there would probably be some that weren't surprised by that because there were a lot of Indiana fans that were already saying that Hoover was better than Mendoza. Now, I personally don't like to do that because I like to see the guy actually play first, but I am conceding here insane. Hoover had a better first game than Mendoza by far. That one, where he played, confidence, everything else. The biggest concern I have is not whether Hoover has enough talent. We already know that he had talent. The question is what happens when Indiana plays somebody who can create pressure, muddy the picture, force him to make uncomfortable decisions? Because Mendoza did struggle with that. It's just, Mendoza was the guy who stepped up every single time and answered the bell. Can Josh Hoover be that guy? Because it's not going to be perfect all season long. That's where you find out how much Indiana has actually changed.

11:17Because eventually, he's going to have a Saturday where the first read is covered, the pocket is collapsing. Indiana is not comfortable and somebody is going to tempt Hoover into throwing the ball the way he shouldn't or throw it to who he shouldn't. And that'll be the real test. If that happens, how does Hoover respond? But he is an encouraging thing. We entered the season wondering whether or not we, but a lot of people entered the season wondering whether quarterback was going to be Indiana's biggest weakness. We never thought that here. And after week one, I'm wondering whether quarterback might actually remain one of Indiana's biggest strengths. So much of the fact that Hoosier might be better or Hoosier. Hoover might be better than for Indiana Mendoza. And that's a huge difference. I'm more on that train than I was before. So here's what I'm watching for with Hoover going forward. Not whether he throws four touchdowns every week. That's great, but we're not stat watchers here. I use a lot of stats because I think they give good evidence and stuff like that. But we're not just stat watchers here. I want to see what happens with the turnovers.

12:19If Indiana can get Hoover through September and into big template without the interceptions hardly at all, maybe one or two that just kind of happens, that just happens sometimes, that's when I start getting really serious about Hoover as a high swing contender. Because the arm talents there, the receivers appear to be there. And signetti's offense is still producing explosive plays. Mike Shanahan knows what he's doing with the entire equation that Hoover is becoming a more disciplined quarterback than he has been in the past. And if that happens, now Indiana is not simply defending a championship while trying to replace for an intermendoza. They may have found another quarterback capable of keeping them in the national championship conversation. And that is why plus 2200, high swing numbers start looking a whole lot more interesting right now than maybe they would at some point before. That's what makes us North Texas game worth paying attention to. Not just 52 points, not just four touchdowns by themselves. It's that Indiana's biggest offseason question that a lot of people had for them.

13:21Finally gets its real answer. Is it totally answered? No, not yet. Like I said, we got to see him in a pressure situation. We got to see how he responds. The answer is a whole lot better than I think a lot of people anticipated. Who's your fans knew? But a lot of people anticipated. Joshua Hoover doesn't have to become Fernando Mendoza. He just has to become the best version of Joshua and side curks in that he's offense. One game in. That version looked pretty dangerous. So where are you on Joshua? Are you already buying into him as the as better than Fernando Mendoza or do you need to see him against a big 10 defense first? Let me know below and like the video and subscribe here to the Big 10, Huddled More Big 10 Football and Basketball Analysis. We appreciate you being here. Have a good one. We'll see you next time.