It was the middle of the first quarter Saturday night, with Indiana forcing Illinois to punt on its second drive of the quarter. Hoosier defensive back D’Angelo Ponds happened to be in the right place at the right time.
Ponds batted down the ball right as it launched off the boot of Illinois punter Keelan Crimmins. In a scramble to reclaim the ball, Ponds scooped it up and ran it into the end zone for an 11-yard touchdown, putting Indiana on the board first.
“We've been talking about it all the time,” Ponds said. “I like to make plays for the team and I feel like that was a big play. I just did my job and came off the edge.”
Ponds and the IU defense did their job and led No. 19 Indiana to a 63-10 win over No. 9 Illinois on Saturday night.
The Hoosiers defense was pivotal to not only getting the momentum going but holding up throughout Saturday's game. They were dominant at the line of scrimmage and met Illinois on nearly every assignment, only allowing one touchdown from the Illini and a 46-yard field goal.
The defensive line made everyone's life a little bit easier on Saturday, holding Illinois to 163 yards — 159 through the air and two on the ground. In fact the defense held Illinois in the negative for rushing yards until later in the fourth quarter. Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti was seemingly not surprised by their performance.
“I thought our defensive line could whip their offensive line, and we did,” Cignetti said.
Indiana sacked Illini quarterback Luke Altmyer seven times and made 10 tackles for loss for 46 negative yards.
Mario Landino, one of Indiana's defensive ends, had the biggest performance amongst the players on the line. Landino had four total tackles with two sacks and two tackles for loss and one broken up pass.
Altmyer said to the media after the game that Indiana's defense mixed things up making it hard on their offense.
“They were confident with what they were doing,” Almyer said. “They were flying around and kept us behind the chains for sure all night. But yeah, just sickening.”
That aligns with IU linebacker Aiden Fisher's perspective of the defense, saying that they played a more physical approach on Saturday. Paired with the speed they had, he felt Illinois was not expecting it at all.
“We knew if we could get them off schedule and get them behind early, some things would go our way a little more than they (Illinois) expected,” Fisher said.
The defense seemed to know what Illinois was going to run every time. Fisher said the group builds on being able to stop the run. IU took away an element of the Illini offense that they've utilized all season until now. It made the Illini play left-handed.
The Illinois offense also had committed no turnovers going into Saturday's game, until a fourth quarter interception came from Amare Ferrell.
Currently, Indiana is now ranked No. 2 in the conference in total defense, one spot below Minnesota and above their next two opponents Iowa and Oregon who are ranked at five (Oregon) and six (Iowa) amongst defenses in the conference.
Iowa does not run the flashiest offense in college football. In fact the team has struggled with offensive schemes hard over the past few years, costing them quite a few games. However, when they are putting together complete drives, they can be tricky to defend against. Especially this year as the group is led by veteran quarterback Mark Gronowski — the College Football Division I all time winning quarterback with 52 victories (the first 49 of which came at FCS school South Dakota State).
The Hoosiers hope to keep things moving forward, and the defense will have to play intelligently once again as they head into a hostile environment at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa come Saturday.
COLUMN: Welcome back to the spotlight, Indiana
