Football team opens in Bloomington vs. Indiana State

After a summer of heartache, it’s time to play football.\nThe Hoosiers begin their season at 8 p.m. Saturday at Memorial Stadium with the overall goal of realizing their late coach Terry Hoeppner’s vision to “Play 13.” Step one of that journey begins under the lights against Indiana State.\nIU coach Bill Lynch, who filled the head coaching position in March when Hoeppner took a leave of absence, expressed reservations about Saturday’s game.\n“I think your openers – and people are going to be saying this all across the country – that so often you lose a first game more than you really win,” Lynch said. “I think that’s something that we’re going to be conscious of.”\nAnother thing that Lynch and the Hoosiers will have in mind is the Sycamores new-look defense. ISU is expected to play only three defensive linemen, a system designed to prevent big plays as well as confuse the offense as to where blitzes may come from.\nOne player charged with deciphering the Sycamore defense will be sophomore quarterback Kellen Lewis. Lewis returns as the starter after a promising freshman campaign where he threw for over 2,000 yards and 14 touchdowns in addition to running for over 600 yards and five more touchdowns.\n“They play with three defensive linemen and keep everything in front of them,” Lewis said. “We’re going to have to nickel and dime them down the field.”\nISU is coming off of a season in which they finished 1-10. Their lone victory snapped a 24-game losing streak. Despite ISU’s struggles from a year ago, the Hoosiers are taking this matchup seriously. Junior wide receiver James Hardy, who returns after catching 51 passes and 10 touchdowns last season, thinks IU will bring out the Sycamore’s best.\n“Their D is experienced and hungry,” Hardy said. “We’re going to get their best game.”\nOn the other side of the ball, the Hoosiers’ main goal is to stay within their system. Junior tackle Greg Brownsaid that because it’s only the first game of the season, the Hoosiers will implement their base schemes first before adjustments are made. \n“The theme this week is play IU football,” Brown said. “We’re going to play our defenses and nobody else’s.”\nBrown will anchor the defense as he did last year when he started every game and recorded 42 tackles, including 5.5 for loss. Accompanying him on defense is sophomore safety Nick Polk. Polk started nine games as a wide receiver last year, but switched to defense during spring practice. Joining Polk in the secondary will be senior captain Tracy Porter, who last year was awarded second team All-Big Ten.\nLynch highlighted turnovers, big plays and special teams as areas IU wants to excel at Saturday.\n“We don’t want to turn the ball over, we want to create turnovers. We want to limit big plays and we’d like to get some big plays,” Lynch said. “The kicking game is always so big in an opener. Substitutions, foolish penalties – all of those things that we’ve really stressed through camp – hopefully we’ll carry that over on to Saturday.”