I love Indiana this week this is not a good match up for Northwestern and if you recall they were down 25-0 last year before Indiana choked that lead away. The last three meetings have all been decided by 6 points. Northwestern is off a devastating home loss as they blew a 17 point lead and I don't think they recover from that this week.
Northwestern's 88th passing defense will be tested by Ben Chapel and Tandon Doss at WR who are ranked 6th in passing offense. Their secondary has been just awful. I remember having Northwestern at home against Central Michigan and they could not stop the team down the stretch. Central Michigan did lose 30-25 but were just -5 yards on the road. Reason I bring this up is Central Mich has very similar rankings. They are one dimensional 19th pass 96th run and they feature a subpar defense much like Indiana. But Indiana has a better offense and will take advantage of Northwestern's weakness on offense which I'll get to in a minute.
Both teams have similar defense ranked 67th and 77th with Northwestern better, but they have faced an average opponent ranked 71st in total offense while Indiana has faced 51st. Facing Michigan and Ohio State and Illinois is much more impressive than a resume of Northwestern that has only Michigan State.
This is a must win for Indiana if they hope to go bowling with Wisconsin and Penn State up next. The closest team that Indiana has faced that compared to what Northwestern is would be Arkansas State as they too have a pass game and a below average running game. Indiana beat that team 36-34 and out gained them by 158 yards at home. Indiana has only allowed 7 sacks this year on 295 attempts so Chapel will have the quick time to throw in what is a dink and dunk offense much like Northwestern is. The difference is Northwestern's offensive line is abysmal.
They have given up 25 sacks this year and Indiana will finally get a pass rush. ON defense they look bad, but they have had some decent stops when they have to come up with them. Persa should have over 300 yards passing against, but Indiana and Ben Chapel will have more. Northwestern's run game has been awful as their running backs have less than 4ypc and have had fumbling issues. Other factors are Northwestern's kicking game which has been awful. Demos has missed 7 field goals (2 blocked) and 4 extra points (1 blocked). This does not bode well for what will be a close game. Home team has won all three of the last games and they will again today.
