Indiana, Minnesota Start Season with Victories; What Did We Learn From Opening Night?

Two Big Ten teams kicked off their 2016 seasons on Thursday night, as Indiana defeated Florida International 34-13 and Minnesota outlasted Oregon State 30-23.

Indiana travels to Ohio State on Sat. Oct. 8 for a week 5 meeting and the Hoosiers gave the Buckeyes a good fight in 2015, as OSU held on to win 34-27.

The Hoosiers have some new faces in 2016, losing star running back Jordan Howard and going with a new quarterback, Richard Laglow, who transferred from Oklahoma State.

Indiana’s offense got out to a slow start against FIU on Thursday in Miami, trailing 13-12 after three quarters, but the Hoosiers came to life in the fourth, scoring three touchdowns.

Laglow threw for 240 yards, completing 18-of-27 passes, with one touchdown and zero interceptions.

The Hoosiers had to be encouraged by junior running back Devine Redding, who rushed for 135 yards on 22 carries, picking up where Howard left off.

The slow start is a concern and the level of competition is nowhere near what the Hoosiers will face in the Big Ten, but all things considered, it was a good way to open up the season.

The Minnesota Golden Gophers will not play the Buckeyes in the regular season, but there’s no doubt they believe they can reach the Big Ten Championship and potentially meet OSU down the road.

Minnesota held off the Oregon State Beavers at home, but if there was one theme to the Golden Golphers’ play on Thursday, it was physicality.

Three Minnesota players were ejected for targeting, which some would say is evident of a lack of discipline on defense, but throughout the night, the Golden Gophers delivered hard hits from start to finish.

Minnesota came away with four sacks on the night, two of which came from freshman defensive lineman Tai’yon Devers, who was one of the three players ejected for targeting.

All four of the Golden Gophers’ touchdowns came via the ground, as sophomore running back Rodney Smith ran for 125 yards on 25 carries, scoring two touchdowns and senior quarterback Mitch Leidner ran for two touchdowns, collecting 76 yards on 13 carries.

Minnesota plays Indiana State in Week 2, while Indiana takes on Ball State.

For the Golden Gophers, the defense will need to find a way to play more under control, but still keep that aggressive physicality on its side.

Minnesota’s offense looks like it will rely heavily upon Leidner and Smith to get the job done with their legs, but we’re still only one week into the season.

For the Hoosiers, it will be interesting to see how the new quarterback does out of the gate in his second game, as perhaps some of the slow start against FIU was attributed to not playing alongside his teammates in a game situation before.

Indiana has quite a mountain ahead in the Big Ten East Division, with teams like Ohio State, Michigan, and Michigan State, but Minnesota plays in the West, where Iowa is the only ranked team and perhaps the Golden Gophers can make it an interesting race to the conference championship, along with Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Northwestern.

The rest of Big Ten Week 1 action takes place Friday and Saturday, here’s the schedule for the other 12 teams in the conference:

Friday

(12) Michigan State vs. Furman 7 p.m.

Saturday

(7) Michigan vs. Hawaii 12 p.m.

(6) Ohio State vs. Bowling Green 12 p.m.

Purdue vs. Eastern Kentucky 12 p.m.

Northwestern vs. Western Michigan 12 p.m.

Maryland vs. Howard 12 p.m.

Rutgers @ (14) Washington 2 p.m.

Penn State vs. Kent State 3:30 p.m.

Illinois vs. Murray State 3:30 p.m.

(17) Iowa vs. Miami (OH) 3:30 p.m.

Wisconsin vs. (5) LSU 3:30 p.m.

Nebraska vs. Fresno State 8 p.m.