MIAMI BEACH — On the first play of the Peach Bowl, Oregon quarterback Dante Moore dropped back to pass. He stared down one side of the field and tried to deliver a short pass to his receiver.
D’Angelo Ponds was there. The star Indiana cornerback hauled in the interception and returned it for a touchdown. The Ducks were immediately down 7-0 and never got on the right foot, falling to the Hoosiers 56-22.
Miami Hurricanes quarterback Carson Beck’s task is to avoid falling victim to Indiana’s stellar pass defense in Monday’s national title game.
“Obviously, they do a lot of really different things on defense from their fronts to different pressures to coverages,” Beck said. “They try to keep you guessing as an offense.”
Under defensive coordinator Bryant Haines, the Hoosiers are second in the nation in points allowed per game (11.1) and 23rd nationally in passing yards allowed per game (185.9). They are tied for seventh in the nation with 18 interceptions.
In addition to having talented defenders, the Hoosiers induce mistakes by forcing quarterbacks to make quick reads after taking the snap. Beck said he can try to pick up on Indiana’s tendencies by watching film of their first 15 games, but it all comes down to what he sees.
“At the end of the day, it’s all going to come down to kind of read and react once I do get on the field,” Beck said. “And I feel like that’s what we’ve been able to do well.”
Offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson said the Hoosiers usually stick to zone coverages, but they mix up their coverage schemes to avoid falling into a predictable rhythm.
“The way they mix up zone coverages is really elite,” Dawson said. “They don’t really get into a rhythm … I would say it’s almost like they have these things they do — how much ever it is; let’s say it’s like eight — and they just kind of pick them out of a hat. They’ll call a similar coverage on 1st-and-10 as they do on 3rd-and-4. So it’s hard to get in a rhythm against them because they’re mixing stuff up on the back end a lot.”
Dawson said he thinks Beck is well-equipped to handle Indiana’s post-snap deception because Beck typically makes his decisions based on post-snap progressions anyway.
“I would say the good thing is our pass game is not dictated on pre-snap looks, if that makes sense,” Dawson said. “We’re a progression-based offense, and our quarterback, we put a lot on him as far as seeing space and going through his progression and getting it to the open guy. So I feel like we’re equipped. But ultimately, there hasn’t been a lot of people having a lot of success versus them and so we’ll see how it goes.”