31 IU athletes have netted NIL deals
8 sports represented in Hoosiers For Good class
BLOOMINGTON – Hoosiers For Good, IU’s official-partner NIL collective, confirmed its 2023 summer class as the largest in its history Thursday. Fully 31 Indiana athletes have deals arranged with one of a baker’s dozen charities partnered in the class, according to an announcement shared initially with IndyStar.
Eight sports are represented: men’s and women’s basketball, football, baseball, softball, field hockey, rowing and women’s golf. All 12 men’s basketball players are included in this class, as are eight football players.
“I’m proud of the impact that Hoosiers For Good and our student-athletes have made on our charitable partners since we launched in 2022,” Tyler Harris, executive director of Hoosiers For Good, said. “With each class of athletes we announce, we are furthering out commitment to our partners to raise awareness for the work they do in their communities. It’s exciting to be a part of, and I’m looking forward to seeing how these 31 athletes use their voices to make a difference.”
Hoosiers For Good and its businessside companion, Hoosiers Connect, act as IU athletics’ official NIL partners. The department is allowed to promote and fundraise for their efforts, which primarily involve building deals connecting Indiana athletes either with participating businesses or charities in the name, image and likeness space. Just last month, IU held a significant fundraising event via that partnership in Westfield, with several athletes and department dignitaries in attendance.
This is the second year running Hoosiers For Good has announced a summer class, in addition to groups in the spring and fall. Athletes engaged in deals through Hoosiers For Good will be expected to promote their charities’ work through public appearances, social media posts and other activities.
In total, 96 IU athletes are currently engaged in yearlong NIL deals arranged through Hoosiers For Good, alongside 30 partnered charities. Here’s the summer class in full:
A Kid Again: Sydney Keld, Xavier Johnson, Luke Sinnard, Devin Taylor
Big Brothers Big Sisters South Central Indiana: Malik Reneau.
Boone County Mentoring Partnership: DeQuece Carter, JoJo Johnson, Derin McCulley.
Cancer Support Community: Kaleb Banks, Julianna LaMendola, Lenee Beaumont.
Girls Inc.: Brianna Copeland, Taylor Minnick, Faith Johnson, Chloe Johnson, Clare Hunsberger.
Indiana Wish: Mackenzie Mgbako, Sydney Parrish.
LittleStar ABA Therapy: Trey Galloway.
Mackida Loveal & Trip Outreach Center: Jakai Newton, Anthony Walker.
Muscular Dystrophy Foundation: Nic Toomer, Amare Ferrell, Jordan Shaw.
Project 44: Anthony Leal, Payton Sparks.
Turnstone: Gabe Cupps, Kel’el Ware. Warriors For Peace: CJ Gunn. Wheeler Mission: Robby Harrison, Louis Moore.
LINE’S TIME TO SHINE?
Across his first seven seasons in Bloomington (including one as defensive coordinator), Tom Allen’s defenses often wound up working backward. This year, the scheme looks right side up again, thanks to the transfer portal.
Convention holds that a good defense is best up front, winning the line of scrimmage, stopping the run and pressuring the pass until mistakes are made and can be capitalized on at the back end. That’s never a rigid setup, but it’s a tried and tested method of good defense.
For the last seven years, though, Allen has had the luxury of penciling some of his best defensive players into secondaries stockpiled with both talent and experience. Rashard Fant, Jonathan Crawford, Andre Brown, Raheem Layne, Tony Fields, Bryant Fitzgerald, Marcelino Ball, Reese Taylor, Jaylin Williams, Jamar Johnson, Devon Matthews, Tiawan Mullen — the steadiness and depth Indiana has enjoyed in recent years at defensive back is quietly impressive.
That’s not the case heading into this season, when the Hoosiers are likely to draw from a cornerback rotation stocked with transfers and redshirt freshmen. Safety and husky will be slightly more seasoned, thanks to Noah Pierre and Josh Sanguinetti, but there’s still a lot of unknown there as well.
Which might be why Allen has hit the portal so hard in the last two cycles along a defensive line now remade by incomings at virtually every position.
“An area that kind of sticks out numerically is our defensive line, and just having some new guys there and the way those guys have performed during camp,” Allen said during weekly press availability Monday. “Excited to see those guys play. I think that’s going to be one of the strengths of our defense.”
IU didn’t release a two-deep to start the season, but if we’re roughing one in, the defensive line group certainly includes transfers Andre Carter, Phili Blidi, Lanell Carr, Marcus Burris, L.D. Cox and Myles Jackson. There are more names that could get involved there as the season goes on, but between tackle, end and bull, that’s already six names just taken in the last two portal cycles.
In some ways, IU’s line shapes into a fascinating test case for the ability of a program like this one to remake a position largely through the portal.
Allen has enjoyed disruptive lines in his time at Indiana. Three times in his first five seasons as either coordinator or head coach, the Hoosiers finished in the top six in the Big Ten in sacks. They led the league in that area in the COVIDaffected 2020 season, and across 2019 and 2020 were among the nation’s best in advanced metrics like havoc rate.
But the last two years have seen a deep backslide in IU’s ability to disrupt opposing offenses. Since the start of the 2021 season, IU has just 37 total sacks. Only Northwestern has been so bad across the same period.
Indiana hasn’t had a player finish with double-digit sacks in a season since Jammie Kirlew, in 2008. The speed with which spread tempo offenses deliver the ball means the pass rush doesn’t quite work that way anymore, but the fact that it’s been almost 15 years still speaks volumes.
It’s clear Allen likes the group he has now. Burris and Blidi give IU more size inside. Carr has come on during fall camp. Carter might be the Hoosiers’ best player.
“We’ve all got the same goal at the end of the day,” Carr said after practice Tuesday. “When I first came in here, it was a different kind of mentality. Everybody was ready to work, and everybody was ready to go.”
Starting with an Ohio State team breaking in two new tackles, a new center and a new quarterback Saturday, Indiana needs its defensive line to materialize as a legitimate strength.
CBS COMING TO TOWN
It’s been 29 years since Brad Nessler and Gary Danielson called a game in Bloomington. That one wore a similar complexion to the one awaiting them Saturday afternoon.
No. 2 Penn State arrived on Nov. 5, 1994, undefeated and rolling, having beaten ranked Michigan and ranked
Ohio State in the previous two weeks. The latter win was a 63-14 steamrolling, leaving the Nittany Lions locked in competition with Nebraska for No. 1 at a time when national championships were still awarded based on poll finish.
“Everybody assumed if Penn State routed Indiana, that they’d move to No. 1 and they could maybe run the table and win the national title,” Nessler told reporters during a Zoom on Wednesday.
Instead, Indiana played stubborn. Backup quarterback Chris Dittoe threw two touchdown passes in the final two minutes of what turned into a 35-29 Penn State win, closer than expected and enough to scare the visitors.
IU finished that season 6-5 and missed a bowl. But Penn State suffered another scare the next week, at Illinois. And after losing its No. 1 ranking in the week leading up to the IU game, Penn State never got it back. Nebraska won the Orange Bowl, Penn State won the Rose Bowl and Nebraska won the national title.
“It probably ruined Penn State’s chances for a national championship,” Nessler said. “They never moved past that No. 2 spot because they had that close encounter with the Hoosiers.”
Can Indiana manage something similar this weekend against the No. 4 Buckeyes?
Nessler and Gary Danielson, CBS’ color commentator for the game, spoke at length with reporters from both sides of the matchup Wednesday. In Indiana, both men see a team likely improved from last season’s 4-8 finish, but also one clearly finding itself in this new era of roster building through the portal.
“IU is getting measured on how they survive and play good football,” Danielson said. “If they look good and look efficient, that’ll be, maybe not a win on the scoreboard, but a step forward.”
This will be CBS’ shakedown cruise bringing its coveted 3:30 p.m. time slot to the Big Ten. For more than two decades, that slot has been reserved for the best SEC matchup of the week, but beginning next year, when CBS’ SEC deal expires and the conference moves fully into the Big Ten fold, it will bring the same gravitas to a conference about to hit 18 members.
Nessler pointed out CBS could count on top-15 matchups nearly every week during its run with the SEC. As the Big Ten expands, he expects the same from the network’s new broadcast partner.
“Next year, with the influx of four new schools into the Big Ten, we feel like that’s going to happen too,” Nessler said. “Same time slot, same music, field’s still 100 yards long. We’re ready to go.”
TRIVIA
Freshman Nicolas Radicic is in competition with Chris Freeman for IU’s starting job at place kicker. Who was the last true freshman to start in that role?
ODDS & ENDS
● Doing the rounds on Ohio State radio this week — with a lot of attendant quarterback questions — sent me down a rabbit hole I hadn’t considered before: What if IU plays Tayven Jackson and Brendan Sorsby?
Allen has been firmly against twoquarterback setups during his Indiana tenure, for a variety of reasons. But there genuinely appears to be a tissuepaper thin gap between the two he has right now, and there aren’t a lot of clear dealbreakers (age, experience, etc.) that would favor one over the other. I’d be surprised if this happened, but a small part of me now wonders, thanks to everyone asking in Columbus, if it might be possible.
● One hoops recruiting note: As mentioned last week, the Sept. 8-10 weekend is shaping up to be a big one for IU, with three 2024 targets (Liam McNeeley, Derik Queen, Curtis Givens) on campus. Austin Swartz is expected the next weekend.
● One further target that hasn’t set a visit yet is Boogie Fland, a highly rated guard from White Plains (N.Y.) Archbishop Stepinac. Fland has been on Indiana’s radar for some time now, and a visit date could be close. He’s got trips scheduled to Kentucky, Alabama and Maryland in September, so an early to mid-October trip to Bloomington would make sense.
● On the topic of kicker: Without wanting to read too much into his words, Allen’s pronouncement Monday that he’d consider using a kicker other than his starter for longer attempts lead me toward the idea Radicic will start, and Freeman — also IU’s kickoff specialist — will get the call if Indiana needs a a bigger leg. It also suggests to me Indiana won’t be trying many long field goals, whoever starts in that role.
● Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh added his voice to a growing chorus of leaders in college athletics supportive of a move to some form of revenue sharing with athletes. We wrote recently about Tom Allen’s support for the idea. It’s probably fair to assume more of those leaders will be lending their voices to the idea in the coming months as well.
● Michael Niziolek over at the Herald-Times got a good scoop this week: IU already has more than 4,000 responses to its Memorial Stadium renovation survey. Again, this is the initial of many steps in this particular project. But that’s good uptake that will provide a weight of data for the department to work forward with.
● Two gameday parking updates from IU ahead of Saturday’s opener: 1) mobile parking passes are now available, and 2) in the general admission grass lots specifically, the department will now practice zipper parking, with attendants directing arriving cars to the next available space. That second point means cars wishing to park next to one another will need to arrive at the same time.
● Lastly, please welcome Zion Brown to our coverage team. Zion is a junior at IU with a strong background in a variety of media. He’s an excellent writer, and strong on the air as well, where you’ll hear him on our Mind Your Banners podcast through the schoolyear. Zion replaces Tyler Tachman, who graduated last year and now covers Iowa for the Des Moines Register.
ANSWER
Bryan Robertson, in 2001. Robertson became a regular for the Hoosiers, making 33-of-48 field goals across the course of his career. He also attempted 14 punts in college.