(INDIANA NOTES)
SETTING THE SCENE
• Indiana kicks off its 139th season of football when it hosts No. 3/4 Ohio State to open the 2023 season on Saturday, Sept. 2.
Kickoff is set for 3:30 p.m. inside Memorial Stadium (55,250; Field Turf) and will air on CBS.
• The Hoosiers and Buckeyes will meet for the 97th time in program history and the 32nd time in Bloomington. The last meeting in
Memorial Stadium came in 2021 in a driving rain under the lights in a Buckeyes victory.
• IU will open with a Big Ten foe for the fifth time in Tom Allen’s seven campaigns and fourth straight season. Allen has faced
Ohio State (2017 & 2023), Penn State (2020), Iowa (2021) and Illinois to open the season as the Hoosiers frontman.
• Since 2002, Indiana has opened the season at home in 14 of the previous 21 seasons. The Hoosiers own a 13-1 record in those
games, with the lone loss to No. 2 Ohio State (2017).
• The 2023 season opener marks the sixth time that Indiana and Ohio State will meet in Week 1. The first season opening meeting
game in 1938, a 6-0 setback for IU in Columbus, Ohio. IU then met OSU in the season opener three straight seasons from 1952-54
and again opened the season versus the Buckeyes in 2017. The first four games were all played in Columbus.
• Entering the 2023 season, Indiana returns just two everyday starters on defense (Aaron Casey & Noah Pierre). Of the 15
returning letterwinners on defense, IU returns just 31 career starts on that side of the ball in 2023 (not counting transfers).
• Sophomore Jaylin Lucas enters the 2023 season at No. 2 on the career kickoff return touchdowns charts at Indiana. The only true freshman in the FBS with multiple kickoff return touchdowns in 2022, Lucas needs just 187 kickoff return yards to enter the top-15 all-time at Indiana.
• The Hoosier roster features 24 transfer scholarship student-athletes for the 2023 season and a total of 36 scholarship newcomers, which is among the most in the FBS. The eight returning starters are among a handful of FBS programs with single-digit returning starters entering 2023.
• Head coach Tom Allen joined a select group of coaches in IU history with his 30th career victory as the Hoosiers’ head coach. Of the 30 wins, 12 have come in one possession games, including a 4-1 mark in overtime contests.
• The Indiana special teams units blocked multiple kicks in a year for the second straight season in 2022. Special teams
coordinator Kasey Teegardin’s crew blocked three field goals in 2022 to give his unit nine blocked kicks in the last five seasons.
• Five team captains were announced by head coach Tom Allen prior to the season opener with wide receiver Cam Camper, defensive lineman Andre Carter, linebacker Aaron Casey, offensive lineman Mike Katic and defensive back Noah Pierre each earning the distinction for the first time in their careers.
BY THE NUMERBS
2….Number of returning everyday starters on the defensive side of the ball
for Indiana. The Hoosiers have just 31 career IU starts total returning
on defense in 2022.
.622….Indiana finished 2022 with the seventh hardest opponents winning
percentage nationally at .648.
24….Indiana welcomes 24 scholarship transfer student-athletes into the
mix for 2023, a group that was the second-highest-rated transfer
group (No. 13; On3) in the Big Ten.
7…..Head Coach Tom Allen enters his seventh season at the helm of
the Indiana program.
• One theme for the 2023 Indiana football team will be the youth that the Hoosiers have at each position. The quarterback position is no exception, as the room has just two collegiate starts entering the year. • In the Big Ten, Indiana is one of five programs with five or fewer career starts in the QB room. Michigan State and Penn State enter the season with zero career starts, followed by Indiana (2) then Minnesota (5) and Purdue (5). • A pair of redshirt freshmen commenced to battle throughout fall camp to earn the starting role, as Brendan Sorsby and Tayven Jackson each had the opportunity to earn the starting role. • Jackson was a consensus four-star recruit out of Center Grove High School in 2021. He spent one season at Tennessee before transferring to Indiana, where his brother, Trayce Jackson-Davis was an All-American on the hardwood and is now a part of the Golden State Warriors organization. • In his lone season at Tennessee, Jackson appeared in three games and went 3-for-4 passing for 37 yards. He also ran four times for 10 yards and one touchdown. Scored his one touchdown against Akron (9/17). • A consensus top-20 quarterback at CGHS, Jackson led Center Grove to back-to-back undefeated IHSAA Class 6A state championships and 28-straight wins between his junior and senior seasons. • A Nike Elite 11 finalist, he was tabbed Indiana Football Coaches Association all-state as a senior. He set the school record for career passing yardage (4,813), as he completed 329- of-547 passes with 47 touchdowns in his career. • The collegiate debut for Sorsby came after an injury to Jack Tuttle against No. 16/16 Penn State in the second quarter. He completed 3-of-6 passes for 8 yards. • Sorsby was the No. 13 rated pocket passer nationally per ESPN after he threw for 14 touchdowns in 2021 at Lake Dallas High School in Corinth, Texas. He threw for 1,271 yards in seven games during an injury-shortened senior season.
(OHIO STATE NOTES)
FIRST AND TEN
No. 3/4 (AP) Ohio State kicks off its 134th season of intercollegiate football with a 3:30 p.m. game Saturday in Bloomington, Ind., against Indiana. CBS, one of two new network TV partners with the Big Ten, will broadcast the game nationally. Ohio State, after winning Big Ten championships in head coach Ryan Day’s first two seasons (2019 and 2020), is coming off consecutive 11-2 seasons in 2021 and ’22 with 8-1 Big Ten records. The Buckeyes hold a commanding 78-12-5 advantage over the Hoosiers in the all-time series that began in 1901 and have won 27 consecutive games since a 27-all tie in Bloomington in 1990. Ohio State is 29-2-1 vs. IU all-time in Bloomington. Indiana’s last wins over Ohio State came consecutively in 1987 and 1988. Ohio State features 16 players who earned all-Big Ten honors last season, including first-team honorees WR Marvin Harrison Jr. (All-American; Big Ten WR of the Year), DE JT Tuimoloau (10.5 TFLs, 3.5 sacks, 2 INTs and 4 PBUs), LB Tommy Eichenberg (2nd-team All-American, 120 tackles and 12.0 TFLs) and OG Donovan Jackson (13 starts 2022).
THE 2023 BUCKEYES
Ohio State’s 2023 team will feature 16 players who earned all-Big Ten honors last season, including first-team honorees WR Marvin Harrison Jr., DE JT Tuimoloau, LB Tommy Eichenberg and OG Donovan Jackson. Also returning: 2nd-team all-Big Ten honorees WR Emeka Egbuka and OG Matt Jones; 3rd-team: DT Michael Hall Jr., TE Cade Stover and RB Miyan Williams; and honorable mention: CB Denzel Burke, LB Steele Chambers, RB TreVeyon Henderson, P Jesse Mirco, SAF Lathan Ransom, DE Jack Sawyer and DT Tyleik Williams.
A total of 16 starters are back, with seven each on offense and defense. On special teams, the Buckeyes will be replacing two-year starting kicker Noah Ruggles and veteran longsnapper Bradley Robinson. The positions of wide receiver (38 combined career starts between Marvin Harrison Jr., Emeka Egbuka and Julian Fleming) and linebacker (44 career starts by Tommy Eichenberg, Steele Chambers and Cody Simon) are the most veteran and experienced for the Buckeyes entering the season. In the transfer portal, the Buckeyes added 85 combined starts to the roster in the form of the addition of Victor Cutler Jr., (21) and Josh Simmons (13) along the offensive line and Ja’Had Carter (28) and Davison Igbinosun (10) in the defensive backfield. The team also added long snapper John Ferlmann, who snapped in all 12 games for Arizona State in 2022. Ranked No. 3 in the Associated Press preseason poll, Ohio State is beginning a season ranked in the top five for the 10th time in the last 11 years.
SCOUTING INDIANA: Head coach Tom Allen enters his seventh season leading the Hoosiers in 2023. He was the 2020 American Football Coaches Association National Coach of the Year. IU co-defensive coordinator Matt Guerrieri spent the 2022 season on Ohio State’s staff as a senior advisor/analyst. He has a long history with defensive coordinator Jim Knowles, including working with him at Duke from 2012-17. The Hoosiers’ roster includes 48 newcomers, the second-most of any program in the Big Ten (Nebraska has 62 newcomers). Of those 48 newcomers, 36 are scholarship players and 32 were brought in via the transfer portal. Indiana returns just eight starters from last year’s team, which is the fourth-fewest nationally. Only Colorado, Stanford and New Mexico return less.