Indiana Football: 3 Hoosiers receive PFF All-Big Ten recognition
By Alec Lasley
Three Indiana football players named amongst Pro Football Focus’ Big Ten best players including one All-Big Ten First Team performer.
The 2019 preseason Pro Football Focus All-Big Ten first team, second team and honorable mention selections were released for every position on offense and defense including specialists, such as kickers and punters. While the Indiana football program does have a handful of skill positions loaded with talent, there were some names missing.
While Jonathan Taylor (Wisconsin) and J.K. Dobbins (Ohio State) were the two first team running backs selected, it was a little bit surprising that Indiana’s Stevie Scott was just named an honorable mention candidate. Illinois’ Reggie Corbin was named to the second team ahead of Scott, despite rushing for 1,085 yards (8.5 yards per carry) and nine touchdowns compared to Scott’s 1,137 yards and 10 touchdowns. The main difference is ypc where Scott averaged 5.0 last year.
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Marcelino Ball was the other honorable mention Hoosier at the flex position with Dicaprio Bootle of Nebraska receiving first team honors, and Lavert Hill of Michigan on the second team. With just one position for ‘flex’ you can easily make a case for Ball to be on one of the first two teams, but it is hard to take either one of the other two off.
The only Hoosier to make it on either the first or second team is Logan Justus, Indiana’s kicker. Last season Justus was a very stable part of the Indiana offense and according to the article was the “power-five conference’s second highest-graded kicker, Justus knocked home 83.3% of his field goals last year including all 11 from 39 yards in.”
What was surprising was how neither Nick Westbrook or Donavan Hale were listed as even an honorable mention for the wide receiving position. Just days after being named two of the best deep threat wide-outs in the conference, they were listed behind K.J. Hill (OSU), Tyler Johnson (Minn) both on the first team, and Michigan’s Donovan Peoples-Jones and Nico Collins on the second team. For honorable mention, Rashod Bateman (Minn) and Danny Davis III (UW) were the two honorable mention wide receivers.
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It’ll be interesting to see how the Hoosiers’ players live up to their expectations this season and if they can show up in big time games. If they can and Indiana makes it back to a bowl game, I wouldn’t be shocked to see a couple of names on the two All-Big Ten teams at season’s end.