No. 3 Oregon hosts No. 7 Indiana on Saturday (12:30 p.m., CBS) at Autzen Stadium.<\/p>\n
The Oregonian\/OregonLive reached out to Indiana beat reporter Michael Niziolek (@michaelniziolek<\/a> on X) of the Bloomington Herald-Times<\/a> to pose five questions about the Hoosiers and get a prediction.<\/p>\n 1) How has Indiana been able to replace Kurtis Rourke with Fernando Mendoza and be even better, at least thus far?<\/p>\n Niziolek: \u201cJust this week Indiana starting center Pat Coogan described Mendoza\u2019s arm talent as \u2018undeniable,\u2019 and that\u2019s probably a good place to start. He\u2019s had some wow moments this season that explain why NFL talent evaluators were so high on him.<\/p>\n \u201cThe other key factor that gets a bit overlooked is the talent surrounding him. The Hoosiers brought back five starters on offense including their top two receivers (Elijah Sarratt and Omar Cooper) and landed productive transfers (Coogan is one of them) to fill their other holes.\u201d<\/p>\n 2) If Indiana has a clear vulnerability, what is it?<\/p>\n Niziolek: \u201cI\u2019m going to cheat and name one on each side of the ball. There\u2019s still concern about how IU\u2019s offensive line will hold up against elite competition. Indiana got exposed last year against Ohio State and Notre Dame. The group had shaky moments against Iowa last week \u2014 some of that was related to the Hawkeyes\u2019 blitz heavy approach \u2014 that brought back memories of last year\u2019s failures. <\/p>\n \u201cOn defense, the Hoosiers biggest struggles have come in the back end of the secondary with the safeties. Iowa wasn\u2019t equipped to challenge IU down the field, but Oregon has the type of explosive offense that could expose the communication and alignment issues that have plagued the team through the first five weeks of the season.\u201d<\/p>\n 3) What\u2019s been the key to the run game\u2019s improvement from last year?<\/p>\n Niziolek: \u201cIndiana signed a pair of transfer running backs \u2014 Roman Hemby (Maryland) and Lee Beebe Jr. (UAB) \u2014 who were really effective at bouncing off contact and brought an explosive element to the backfield that was missing last year. Unfortunately for IU, Beebe suffered a season-ending injury in Week 3. They still have solid depth at the position with Kaleon Black and Khobie Martin, but there numbers will probably come back down to earth.”<\/p>\n 4) What is allowing Isaiah Jones to be much more disruptive this season and how much of it is due to team\u2019s planning to limit Mikail Kamara?<\/p>\n Niziolek: \u201cI think I would tweak this question: How has IU\u2019s defense been able to be so disruptive after losing three starters on the defensive line? While the Hoosiers lost some key contributors last year \u2014 former defensive tackle CJ West most notable among them \u2014 the transfers they added up front have all had strong moments and the staff did a nice job developing key returners like Tyrique Tucker and Mario Landino. <\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t forget about Mikail Kamara either. He\u2019s had a quieter season than he did last year when he led the FBS in quarterback pressures, but constantly being double-teamed and that\u2019s actually opened up lanes for his teammates to get to the quarterback.\u201d<\/p>\n 5) How do you see it playing out and what\u2019s your score prediction?<\/p>\n Niziolek: \u201cIndiana is going to make this game more competitive than the ones they lost in Columbus and South Bend last year. After watching the Hoosiers dismantle a veteran-laden Illinois team and survive a tough game at Kinnick Stadium, it wouldn\u2019t surprise me if this is a one-possession game going into the fourth quarter. I still think Oregon wins it, 31-20, but things could get interesting if they have a rematch later this season in Indy.\u201d<\/p>\n No. 3 Oregon (5-0, 2-0 Big Ten) vs. No. 7 Indiana (5-0, 2-0)<\/p>\n When:\u00a0Saturday, Oct. 11Time:\u00a012:30 p.m. PTWhere:\u00a0Autzen Stadium, EugeneTV: You can watch this game live for free with Fubo<\/a> (free trial), with DirecTV<\/a> (free trial) or streaming live on demand with Paramount Plus<\/a>.Stream: DirecTV<\/a> (free trial) or Fubo<\/a> (promotional offers) or Paramount+<\/a> (free trial) or Sling<\/a> (college football season pass is just $199). Streaming broadcasts for this game will be available on these streaming services locally in Oregon and Washington, but may not be available outside of the Pacific Northwest, depending on your location.<\/p>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No. 3 Oregon hosts No. 7 Indiana on Saturday (12:30 p.m., CBS) at Autzen Stadium. The Oregonian\/OregonLive reached…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":212255,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-212254","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212254\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}