UCLA Football Preview: Indiana's Defense Will Look at Lot Like Last Year's James Madison Defense
UCLA Football Preview: Indiana's Defense Will Look at Lot Like Last Year's James Madison Defense
Almost half of the Hoosiers' defensive starters played at JMU last season.
On paper, the Indiana defense looks as stellar as the Hoosier offense.
They have allowed just ten points total in their two games. They held Florida International to seven points to start the season and, last week, they only gave up a field goal to Western Illinois.
The amount of yardage the Hoosiers have allowed sounds equally impressive. They have only allowed a total of 65 net rushing yards as well as a total of 238 passing yards.
But are these stats real numbers or do they reflect the fact that Indiana has played two woefully inferior teams?
Personally, I’m inclined to say it’s the latter, and I fully expect that UCLA will probably put up at least 100 yards rushing tomorrow and the Bruins should be able to double Indiana’s total passing yards.
That isn’t to say Indiana won’t be a tough team tomorrow. They may be, but they may not be. It’s why they play the games, after all.
UCLA has had two weeks to work on improving their offense performance from the inadequate performance we all saw against Hawai’i.
Meanwhile, the Hoosiers appear to be running a base defense similar to one that the Bruins have seen before. The Indiana defense seems to be similar to the “Swarm D” we saw two years ago from South Alabama. Like South Alabama, you might consider it a 4-2-5 or maybe a 3-3-5, depending on where Indiana defensive coordinator Bryant Haines lines up one of his defenders.
The other things which are reminiscent of South Alabama’s defense is how the Hoosiers employ a “Rover” as their fifth defensive back along with how they labeled their cornerbacks as field corners and boundary corners. To be clear, Indiana doesn’t seem to mention this in their game notes, but going back to game notes from James Madison from last year, it’s clear that’s what they will do. You may recall that the Boundary Corner takes the short side of the field from the hash mark to the sidelines while the Field Corner covers the wide side from the hash mark the ball is on across the other hash mark to the sideline.
Again, Indiana hasn’t released a depth chart this season and the game-by-game starters list only says “CB” for the two corners, rather than “BC” and “FC” for the two cornerbacks. So, it isn’t clear which corner is which without watching Indiana’s game tapes.
So, that appears to be the Hoosier defensive scheme. Let’s look at the personnel who will be used to try to stop the Bruin offense.
Defensive Line
Defensive End Mikhail Kamara is another one of the “Indiana Dukes” or “James Madison Hoosiers.” The redshirt junior transferred to Indiana this year after playing last season at James Madison. Kamara appears to be the Hoosiers’ best pass rusher. He leads the team in sacks with three and in quarterback hurries with two. The only defensive lineman with more than one sack is reserve Tyrique Tucker, who has 1.5 sacks.
Redshirt senior James Carpenter will line up at nose. Another JMU transfer, Carpenter had three tackles against FIU along with half a sack, but he didn’t record any stats last week against Western Illinois.
Texas A&M transfer Marcus Burris, Jr., a redshirt junior, will be the starter at defensive tackle. After making three tackles including a TFL against FIU, he didn’t do much last week when his only tackle was an assist.
Finally, the Indiana website lists super senior Lanell Carr, Jr. as a defensive lineman. So far, he’s been listed as the starter at the “Stud” position. How will Haines use Carr? If I had to guess, probably as a hybrid lineman/linebacker where he’s rushing hard on some plays and potentially dropping into coverage on others. His only stats this season all came last week against Western Michigan when he made five tackles including half a sack to go along with a pass breakup.
Linebackers
JMU transfer Aiden Fisher is a junior who will start at middle linebacker. He’s been the star of the Hoosier defense so far this year because he’s leading the team in tackles with 21 including 2.5 TFLs and a sack. Last season, he led JMU in tackles with 108 total tackles including 52 solo tackles. This is the guy the Bruins probably want to stay away from if possible.
Jailin Walker, yet another JMU transfer, will start as the weakside linebacker. Walker is second only to Fisher in tackles with 11 and he has one pass breakup as well. Last season, he made 61 tackles including 5.5 TFLs and 1.5 sacks for the Dukes while also forcing three fumbles.
One other notable linebacker is backup Isaiah Jones. With eight tackles, Jones is tied for fourth on the team in tackles with Tucker and safety Josh Sanguinetti
Secondary
Moving to the secondary, it’s worth repeating that it’s unclear which starting corner will be the field corner and which will be the boundary corner. That said, it does appear that the two corners will be the same guys who started the first two games for the Hoosiers.
One of those starting corners will be sophomore D’Angelo Ponds. Ponds is another JMU transfer. He played very well against FIU, making six tackles and breaking up one pass, but he was quiet last week against Western Michigan when he only made one tackle all game.
The other starting corner will be redshirt junior Jamier Johnson. So far, the Texas transfer has made a total of four tackles with two in each game. He has yet to break up any passes or make any interceptions.
As far as the safeties go, James Madison employed a Free Safety, a Strong Safety and a Rover. Indiana’s game-by-game starter list doesn’t distinguish between the Free Safety and the Strong Safety, but it does indicate that the starting Rover will be sophomore Amare Ferrell. He appears to be ready to make this year a breakout year. Last season, he played in 12 games and made just 10 tackles all year. In two games this season, he’s already made three tackles. He also intercepted a pass in the FIU game.
Senior transfer Shawn Asbury II and redshirt senior Josh Sanguinetti will be the starting safeties. This pair are third and tied for fourth on the team in tackles, respectively. In fact, Asbury is the third player on the Hoosiers to be in double digits in tackles with ten. He also has two pass breakups this year. While Asbury did transfer to IU this year, he didn’t play at James Madison last year. He played at Old Dominion. Meanwhile, Sanguinetti has eight tackles this year including half a TFL. That puts him in line to surpass his career-high in tackles for a season. He made 24 tackles in 2022 when he played in 12 games and he is currently on pace to double that total.
Analysis
It’s really hard to tell whether the Hoosiers have a great defense or if they just played two really bad teams. To be sure, they definitely played a really bad team last week when they blew out Western Illinois 77-3, but the easy win over FIU is a little more difficult to analyze.
How will the Bruin offense fare against a defense that’s allowing an average of just five points per game?
I’ve got to believe that UCLA’s offense will put at least ten points on the board tomorrow after scoring 16 on the road against Hawai’i, and my gut tells me it should be much more.
At the same time, considering the number of JMU transfers who will start for Indiana, this isn’t the first year in a new defensive system for most of these starters. Will the Hoosiers look like a Sun Belt Conference team playingthe Bruins tomorrow? That’s very possible, but when the Bruins played SBC team South Alabama two years ago, the game came down to a late field goal.
Let’s hope that isn’t the case tomorrow.
Go Bruins!!!
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