I know what you're going to say: "It's Indiana."

And I agree with you. It is, after all, Indiana; a team that Ohio State has a 65-9 overall record against, and one that sports the worst overall historical conference winning percentage of any team in the entire league at 30.5%. I'm not about to tell you that this Indiana team is "special", or an exception to the rule, because of its game against Michigan. Indiana is not great, and well... we're about learn if they're actually even good. 

When the Hoosiers almost didn't put away Eastern Kentucky in the opener, I figured they were, by far, worst team in the conference. While losing to 1AA teams isn't anything new to the conference at large, Eastern Kentucky, Danny Hope's old squad, was a 4-loss outfit in 2008; they were no Appalachian State. The Hoosiers then proceeded to beat Western Michigan by 4 points before traveling to miserable Akron and winning by 17. But it was the game against Michigan that made at least a few people, including noted BTN dunce Chris Martin, begin to question the Buckeyes' ability to roll in this game. Would the Hoosiers necessarily lie down and take the beating like they have in so many years past?

Indiana's rise in regional perception is actually rather analogous to the rise in Toledo's, only with about half the evidence, and consequently, half the hype to back it up. While Toledo ripped through both Purdue and Colorado's defenses, the Hoosiers failed to really impress in their first three gimme games before taking Michigan to the wire. So I'm about as concerned for this game as I was for Toledo, which is not very. But there is one thing that makes me a trifle antsy. Indiana is 2nd in the conference in rush D, and they're giving up just 2.6 YPC, slightly more than Penn State's 2.4. Both averages were fiercely beaten down by OOC cupcakes. Before you start thinking the ranking is inflated because no one's rushing on them because the pass is so wide open, that's only partially true: Indiana has faced the 4th-fewest rushing attempts of anyone in the conference, and is the league's 7th ranked pass defense. So these stats aren't just skewed because Indiana is terrible at one thing and thus looks t3h awesome at another because teams just exploit the things at which they're terrible. The stats generally seem to signal that the Hoosiers are actually okay defensively, and that they might be just starting to play their best football. 

The thing that struck me about the Michigan game - aside from Indiana putting up 33 on a Michigan defense I had basically already assumed was lackluster - was how Indiana was frequently able to control the line of scrimmage on defense. This isn't the Wolverine OL of yesteryear; in their first three games, Michigan RBs had toted the rock 127 times for 812 yards, an average of 6.4 YPC. Against the Indiana front, they netted just 148 yards on 50 carries, and that includes a 49 yard scamper by Carlos Brown for UM's second touchdown of the game. 49 carries for 99 yards is not good, and isn't simply a failure of the RichRod system to move the ball on the ground. Quite simply, the Hoosiers played the conference's best rushing offense on the road and made them earn every yard. That concerns me just a bit for this game. Well, that and the fact that the Hoosiers are tied with us for 2nd in the conference in sacks with 11 through 4 games.

But then again, coming into last week's game, Illinois was surrendering just 2.82 YPC, and got bulldozed by a determined Buckeye front.  Like Illinois, Indiana has played mostly pass-centric teams, but unlike Illinois, their secondary has shown no consistent genuine flammability against anyone. But then again, Ohio State needed to do precisely jack and shit through the air against the Illini to be successful. So I dunno. I'm just tossing things out here. It's Indiana. Even our bad teams wipe the floor with them. If Ohio State fails to move the ball on the ground with much success against the Hoosiers, you'll know why. On the bright side, if Ohio State rolls the Hoosiers, we'll have our first common opponent against which we may compare our conquest against that of Michigan's, and barring absolute disaster, it should grade out quite favorably for the Buckeyes.