Indiana as a whole was a patchwork unit this spring, with injuries spread all
throughout the roster and offensive linemen playing out of position. Still,
spring ball provided a look at some of the younger and more inexperienced
players who might not have gotten reps with the first team unit for another two
years. It also still yielded some breakout performers and optimism for the
season. We'll look at each of these categories in our Spring in Review.

Star of the spring: The entire defense. Indiana's defense didn't have
many bad sequences throughout spring practice. The unit forced multiple
turnovers in each scrimmage and kept grounded IU's spread offense. The biggest
play given up was a 35-yard streaking route to freshman Collin Taylor, which is
probably an accomplishment for a defense that was replacing two starting
cornerbacks on the outside. Longtime starters Leslie Majors and Tracy Porter
have graduated, but replacing them doesn't look to be as large of a task as it
was before spring ball. Chris Phillips played well enough to show that
he probably should have been in the game more than he was last fall, and the
younger guys across from him looked good as well. At linebacker, Justin
Carrington and Ian Reeves each had good springs and showed that
they, along with the injured Tyler Replogle, could supply a good second
team rotation to Indiana's starting linebackers, which is an area where the
Hoosiers return a lot of experience.

Biggest surprise: WR Collin Taylor

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