Loading ...Adkins out with ankle injury; Barnett, Kiles move to safety
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by Dustin Dopirak | Monday, August 23, 2010 - 8:04 pm UTC
Indiana secondary coach/co-defensive coordinator Joe Palcic wasn’t sure how he was going to split time among his six cornerbacks.
Thanks to Chris Adkins’ injured ankle, his decisions will be a little easier, but his job could be harder.
The redshirt junior safety suffered the injury in Saturday’s scrimmage and had to be carried off the field. Indiana coach Bill Lynch, who met with the media before an Indiana Tailgate Tour event in Bloomington, didn’t categorize the injury and couldn’t say how long Adkins would be out. However, he did say the injury would require surgery and that it would cost him some significant time.
“He’s going to miss games,” Lynch said. “He’s gonna have some surgery on Wednesday. We’re hopeful we’ll get him back somewhere during the year.”
Redshirt junior safety Jarrell Drane has also been out with a knee injury, which leaves the Hoosiers in sudden need of depth at the position. To combat that, Lynch said he would move redshirt freshman Lawrence Barnett and JUCO transfer Lenyatta Kiles from cornerback to safety.
“They’re both tough guys,” Lynch said. “They’re both good tacklers. And somebody had to. I’m not saying the other guys were clearly ahead of them, but we thought that was the first thing we would try. We’ll see how it works out. We know they can go back and play corner because they’ve got a lot of quality reps, but we just wanted to see how they would fit inside.”
Lynch addressed some other position concerns. He said junior Fred Jones has established himself as the anchor defensive end and redshirt junior Darius Johnson and sophomore Kevin Bush will rotate as the drop defensive ends. He said redshirt junior Andrew McDonald is ahead of the game at left tackle, but the guard positions are still up for grabs among Justin Pagan, Cody Faulkner, Marc Damisch and South grad Aaron Price.
Lynch also said the backup quarterback spot has not been decided yet. He said Dusty Kiel and Edward Wright-Baker “keep going back and forth.”
Also, Lynch said freshman wide receiver Kofi Hughes and freshman linebacker Chase Hoobler would likely be on the travel roster and would not be playing on the scout team. Hughes thumb injury, for which he wears a cast during practice, will likely keep him off the field for some time, but they appear to be the true freshmen with the best chance to play.
Kiles has looked great in practice, quick feet…real quick, but his move to safety even after Evans move shows there was no depth at the position and also shows the coaches have confidence in Council which scares me but we will see…
My take from this move of personnel supports the program does have diverse depth between related positions. It has been the focus of our recruiting to allow us to have versatile personnel to transition; such as, QB’s to WR, DT to DE, OL and DL, RB and LB, WR to DB or CB and S. Injuries are dealt with by using depth. This is what the successful programs do every year, insulating themselves from injuries at every position except for the handful of outstanding performers is key. Depth is one of those positive developments this program has been elevating in quantity and quality for the past 3 years.
The fact of the matter is we have 6 CB’s that are pretty even for only 2 spots. Whoever would have been a 3 there, likely would have moved to a 2 at safety regardless of the injury. Makes sense that you’d move one of the tougher, better tacklers. However, I would have liked Council to be the one that moved seeing that he is probably bigger than both of the other 2 and he has struggled at CB in games the last couple of years. But, I know he is #1 of the 6 right now so they don’t want to move him.
I just had a thought – I wonder if they would consider moving Zachery back to safety. He must be pretty far away from the others on the depth chart if they move him to WR while moving Evans from WR to S. That is disappointing to me because I really thought he would be a special player, and I haven’t heard one word about him during camp.
Yes, Zachery was a good HS safety. He made a lot of game winning plays there. IU had 4 pretty good safeties, one is injured in Adkins, you move 2 from cornerback to safety, that makes 5, why not move Zachery back and give him a chance to play as the 6th safety(3rd team)? If he can contribute you then have 5 corners and 5 safeties in a deep group. Plus we have 3 outstanding true freshmen wide receivers in Logan, O’Connor, and Kofi.
Just my opinion but I am not sure IU has ever had good depth at safety, at least not lately. Polk was moved from WR and now Evans and now an injury and they are moving again. Yes, IU has depth at CB but they are decent at best. IU has depth at WR and I would put that group up vs anyone as far as talent and ability. Don’t know as much about Zachery as a couple of you but I do know that the juco transfers look darn good out there!