Indiana football: Five key Hoosiers from the win vs. Illinois

#1. Cam Jones – LB

Week 1 stats vs. Illinois: 6 solo tackles, 6 assisted tackles, 12 total tackles, 1.0 sack, 1.0 TFL, 1 fumble recovery

Where would the Hoosiers be without Cam Jones and his leadership? My bet is that Indiana football would currently be 0-1 and trending in the wrong direction. Finishing with a game-high 12 tackles even with missing a quarter of game time due to an injury. Even fighting through an injury, Jones was the leader that willed the Hoosiers to victory, as Tom Allen says in his press conference:

"“After the end of the third quarter, we brought the team out and I spoke to them first then tag team it to him (Cam Jones) and he finished it off. His whole message to them was ‘find a way to finish and win this game.’.”"

https://twitter.com/SaintTomAllen/status/1566788499281436673

One of his biggest plays of the game came in the fourth quarter where on third-and-goal, Cam Jones and Josh Sanguinetti gang tackled Chase Brown at the one-yard line to keep Indiana football within one point of the Fighting Illini late in the game. If you watched any moment of the Hoosiers win on Friday night, even if it was for a mere couple minutes, you would have heard Cam Jones’ name said by the announcers, that was his impact on the game.

Jones was definitely my Week 1 MVP and, by the looks of it, he was Hoosier Nation’s Week 1 MVP as well, receiving 59% of votes from Twitter fans.