The transfer portal has given much to Indiana, but it’s also taken quite a bit.
Indiana football has not played a single snap since the breakout 2020 season. That’s right, whatever that was in 2021? Non-existent in our eyes.
Welcome to the Spin Zone.
The year is now 2022. Whatever happened, the roster looks pretty different as a whole.
Michael Penix Jr. has mysteriously ended up in Seattle with Kalen DeBoer, former SEC Freshman of the Year Connor Bazelak is now a Hoosier under equally peculiar circumstances.
A great many wide receivers have simply vanished from the roster overnight. Micah McFadden is a linebacker for the New York Football Giants.
Their replacements include former UNC wide receiver Emery Simmons, JUCO standout Cam Camper and UCLA’s Myles Jackson among others.
Deland McCullough (sadface) is now at Notre Dame coaching running backs to find space behind the people mover that is the Irish’s offensive line. Grant Heard went to UCF to join Gus Malzahn (sure, I guess?).
Their replacements, Craig Johnson and Adam Henry, arrived with plenty of NFL experience. So it seems like Allen may be borrowing a page from the Woodson playbook by saying that you’ll be coached at Indiana like you would as a professional.
There was no spring game. Indiana is the sole Big Ten East program to have gone without some form of public spring game/scrimmage. Cool!
For the above reasons, all of you loyal CQ readers have about as much of an idea how this year is going to go as the good blog does.
That’s why we’re gonna give you a say in the form of a poll. It’ll be revisited at season’s end, for the sake of perspective.
Will Indiana follow up the year that definitely didn’t happen with another losing campaign? Will they reach bowl eligibility or go one game short? We don’t know and neither do you, but we have an idea.
As for our perspective, this is clearly a period of transition for the program. There’s a new offensive coordinator with a new system for the first time since 2018, Allen has retaken control of the defense and the Hoosiers have countered their many portal losses with portal additions and one of the best high school classes in program history. Interesting mix.
So, what do you think?