When the Eastern football team steps on the field Saturday for a road game against Indiana of the Big 10 conference, the Panthers will be facemask to facemask with a team that will be bigger, faster and stronger than its OVC constituents.

So, what will Eastern’s first-year head coach and company do about it come Saturday?

Head coach Adam Cushing’s answer, he admitted, was a cliché, but nonetheless, he said his team was going to focus on itself come the 2 p.m. central time kickoff.

“It sounds cliché, but it really is true,” Cushing said. “When you start looking across the field to the other sideline, you’re going to lose focus on what matters and that is just your own personal performance.”

“They have a really good football team, but we just played a really good football team (Chattanooga),” Cushing added. “So, you just go out there, and our entire goal is to just play better on both sides of the ball and in the kicking game than we did in the first week.”

Cushing himself is no stranger to Indiana; he spent the last 15 seasons on Northwestern’s staff playing them in the Big 10.

Northwestern was 7-1 against Indiana while Cushing was there.

“You saw a lot of good things on both sides of the football, you know with a couple of new coordinators quite frankly, but just really sound football, really fundamentally sound and scheme sound and then they play hard and that is just a great reflection on their head football coach, he does a great job,” Cushing said of Indiana.

Cushing said that overall, when you look at Indiana’s program, “The arrow is really pointing up.”

Indiana quarterback Michael Penix Jr.

Penix Jr. won the starting job in camp from highly-touted transfer Jack Tuttle, and in a 34-24 week-one win over Ball State, Penix Jr. all but proved the coaching staff made the right choice.

The redshirt-freshman threw for 326 yards and rushed for 67 more, accounting for 393 of Indiana’s 474 yards on offense.

“We have to know where he is, we have to know where he is at all times and we have to hit him,” Cushing said of Penix Jr. “Quarterbacks don’t like being hit, so we have to find a way to hit him a little bit and if he pulls that ball down we can’t allow him to make it easy for him.”

Eastern’s defense knows what Penix brings to the field, they all saw what he did in week one, but they hope their game plan can slow the Hoosier’s electric quarterback.

“We just have to stick to our assignments and keep him in the pocket,” said defensive end Austin Johnson. “Stay in our rush lanes, stay on the outside shoulder, stay on the path and just make sure we keep him contained.”

Indiana’s run game.

Indiana’s run game may not have shown all that it is capable of against Ball State in week one, but don’t be mislead.

Indiana’s backfield is very dangerous. In addition to Penix Jr., who is dangerous on his feet, Indiana boasts the services of sophomore running back Stevie Scott.

Scott ran for 1,137 yards and ten touchdowns during his freshman season, arguably the best freshman season by a Hoosier running back in program history.

He was also an honorable mention for the All-Big Ten Team.

Eastern’s defense.

Eastern’s defense, which was horrid in 2018 and ranked second-to-last in the OVC, showed major signs of improvement in week one against Chattanooga, holding the Mocs to just 94 yards rushing and 350 total yards.

Indiana may not be the greatest test to measure further improvement, but keep an eye on the Panthers’ defense to take another step in the right direction on Saturday.

Eastern’s quarterbacks.

Yes, these two again.

The narrative of the quarterback battle between Eastern’s Johnathan Brantley and Harry Woodbery may be getting old (it is over a year old now), but regardless it remains a big storyline.

Eastern said again this week that it is committed to using both quarterbacks in the starting role. And why shouldn’t they?

For the past year both quarterbacks have played to the same level of play.

In week one their stats were almost identical: Woodbery was 13-of-22 with 121 yards passing and one interception, Brantley was 13-of-25 with 119 yards passing and one touchdown.

There remains little separation between the two… so once again… look for one of these two to out-perform the other in week two.

Kickoff between Eastern and Indiana is at 2 p.m. central time Saturday.

JJ Bullock can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].