Bama by the Numbers - IU

NOTES:
-If you arent the type to want to read bad news, this is your chance to bail out before you get upset... youve now been warned
-On paper anyway this is the biggest statistical disadvantage Bama has had in a game since I started tracking this stuff midway through the Saban era
-The only area Bama holds a data advantage is in SOS (1 vs 21)

OFFENSE
-Its worth noting that against OU Ty Simpson had his first 150+ QB Rating / 8+ YPA game per ESPN since Tennessee back in October
-Theres still no point discussing a running game because absent the one long run of 30 yards we still averaged under 2YPA amongst the backs and IU while not as good as OU against the run is almost top 10
-Its also a positive that we topped 30 against an FBS team for the first time against OU since Tennessee as well (both it should be noted involved a pick 6)
-The only two top 20 passing offenses in adj YPA IU has faced all year are Illinois (18th) and Oregon (19th). In other words they havent played an elite passing attack all season on paper but in fairness neither of those teams got to 200 passing yards on the game
-On paper IU's defense is on par with OU in terms of adj scoring defense but not quite as elite as far as adj rushing YPC at 11th and 16th in adj passing YPA
-IU has only allowed two teams to get to 20 points (Oregon and Penn State)
-IU will be without their arguably best defensive lineman which at least should give our tackles a better shot at protecting Ty when he looks to take deeper shots

DEFENSE
-We're facing an offense thats 2nd in adj passing YPA and and 8th in rushing YPC, its not going to be an easy day for the defense
-Obviously Mendoza won the Heisman and its easy to try to discount his season based on SOS, but its worth noting that at least on paper he's already played the #1 and #3 passing YPA defenses (Iowa and Ohio State) and finished both those games with 150+ QB ratings and 3/2 TD/INT ratio so against elite defenses he's been human at least
-Mendoza throws picks against good defenses but they don't really fumble the ball so avoiding turnovers on offense is critical because they're +1.5 turnovers PER GAME right now
-The data seems to think we will have a major problem stopping their run game as they're top 10 and we're way back at 60th defensively and they could even hit 5YPC if trends play out

OVERALL
-This comes down to whether the Big Ten has been so bad in the middle to bottom of the conference that a team like Indiana has exploited bad teams to run out exceptional adjusted numbers because if not they're easily the best team in the nation and really lack any major flaw despite not having elite NFL talent
-I suspect its some of both where they're really good, but not quite as good as the data would suggest because of just how bad some of their opponents have been and they played absolutely no one out of conference that would give us something to baseline them against.
-Their game against Ohio State looked a heck of a lot like the Ohio State-Texas game however (13-10 vs 14-7) but there was a lot more production for OSU against IU (264 total yards, 8.4 YPA) than there were against Texas (203, 6.3 YPA)
-The other obvious data point to look at is Wisconsin who they beat 31-7 (Bama won 38-14 with backups in late) while allowing only 167 yards (Bama allowed 208) and putting up 388 (Bama hit 454).
-So in a game where Bama pulled their starters and Mendoza played virtually the whole way Bama looked slightly better
-All of this to divert away from what the computers think should be a two score loss for Bama (32-21 on average) if IU is what the data says they are
-Bama is as healthy as we've been in a month, but this is gonna be a tough one...