Indiana Changes Practices: Less Reps vs Scout Team, More 'Good-On-Good' Competition

Poor starts have defined the 2023 Indiana football team in its four games vs FBS competition. 

Ohio State, Louisville, Akron and Maryland put up a combined 35 points in first quarter against the Hoosiers, compared to just three points by Indiana. The team hopes that by going against better competition on a daily basis, they'll get a better feel for the speed and physicality of a real-game setting. They sensed that the team's urgency and energy had dipped since the first week of the season, and they wanted to get it back. 

"Coming out of fall camp, we were really ready and really prepared for Ohio State," Katic said, echoing his fellow team captain. "Because we [were] going against the [first team] defense, the good-on-good, all fall camp. That's the reasoning behind [the switch]."

Neither Katic nor Pierre said any of this to disparage the Indiana scout team. But they're also cognizant of the reality — the first team and second team offense and defense provide better, more game-like reps throughout the week. They call it "good-on-good" for that reason. 

"There's nothing against the scout team. The scout team does such a great job giving us looks and everything. But it's that more live feel with the defense," Katic said. "That's all it really is. That's what the captains' meeting was about. I'm looking forward to getting more of those kinds of reps."

And it wasn't just the captains. This is what the whole Indiana football team wanted. They want to stop starting games slowly, and they think more good-on-good reps is the way to achieve that. 

"We had a players only meeting, and that was a common thing that kept coming up," Pierre said. "Guys just wanted to be able to compete against each other. It was a team effort; we all spoke about it. It's not something that I came up myself. Guys wanted to get that full speed, that full sense of urgency that we had coming out of camp, so just getting back to that."

Everyone will have to wait to see if this big structural change to practice will work for the Hoosiers. Katic said that Tuesday was the first time it had been implemented. The urgency IU brought to the Ohio State game kept getting referenced, and on Saturday, they're facing Michigan, the lone team on their schedule perhaps more fearsome than Ohio State. 

Indiana will have just a few more practices with more good-on-good reps, and less against the scout team, to prepare for their toughest test of the season to date.