A glance at Indiana’s schedule shows us that, more than anything, the Hoosiers struggle against Big Ten competition. They’re 4-6 this year, but their four wins have come against early-season and homecoming schedule padding in Towson, Western Kentucky, Akron and Arkansas State. Those teams are pretty bad even by early season standards. Towson is 1-9, with losses against luminaries like Columbia, Richmond and James Madison. Western Kentucky is 2-8, again against substandard competition. Akron’s 0-11 record includes a loss against Gardner-Webb, which I’d never even heard of.
In other words, the Hoosiers haven’t beaten anyone yet. They’re 0-6 in Big Ten play. To their credit, they’ve kept it close against Michigan, Northwestern and Iowa. But they’ve also been blown out by Ohio State, Illinois and Wisconsin, the last of which racked up 83 points against them. The common thread throughout is that they allow their opponents to score at will: the only team that failed to score 20 against the Hoosiers was Towson, which had 17. Their offense is competent enough, scoring about 27 points per game, so expect this one to be a shootout no matter what happens but Penn State is the clear favorite here, and Matt McGloin should be licking his chops.