Indiana Hoosiers Football: Who Will Replace Nate Sudfeld?
By Kyle Nishida
The 2016 College Football season is only a couple of weeks away. As each day passes, more pressure is put on the Indiana Hoosiers‘ coaching staff to make the right decision at quarterback.
Replacing a starting quarterback is never easy for any college football program. The task is even harder when the player who left was statistically the best quarterback in program history.
Last year’s starting quarterback Nate Sudfeld left the University of Indiana as one of the best quarterbacks in school history. He finished his Hoosiers’ career as the school’s career leader in passing yards with 7,879 and in passing touchdowns with 61.
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With Sudfeld moving on to chase his NFL dreams, the Hoosiers need to find his replacement. So far in preseason practices, it looks like the programs has two candidates: junior college (JUCO) transfer Richard Lagow and junior Zander Diamont.
Lagow, who is 6-6 and weighs 240 pounds, transferred from Cisco College in Texas. In this past recruiting period, multiple outlets considered Lagow one of the top JUCO quarterbacks available.
In two years at Cisco, he threw for over 4,500 passing yards, and 38 touchdowns. With Hoosiers, Lagow has two years of football eligibility left.
Meanwhile, Zander Diamont is probably the Hoosiers’ most experienced quarterback. As a Hoosier, he started six games in 2014 and one game in 2015.
Unfortunately, Diamont has struggled throwing the ball whenever he has played. In his career, he has only completed 48.2 percent of his passes and thrown for 681 passing yards, one touchdown and four interceptions.
On the flip side, Diamont has proven to be a decent ball carrier. So far, he has accumulated 269 rushing yards and four rushing touchdowns.
In preseason practice, neither Lagow nor Diamont have locked down the starting role. Big Ten Network Senior Writer Tim Dienhart recently watched a Hoosiers’ practice. He made this observation about the quarterback battle.
"“Lagow ran with the first team today. He looks the part of a Big Ten quarterback at 6-6, 240. He has a strong arm and a good pocket presence. But his passes fluttered at times and his accuracy was a bit spotty. Stay tuned. Diamont is a nifty athlete who can improvise, but is his arm good enough?”"
The Hoosiers also have redshirt sophomore Danny Cameron, redshirt freshman Austin King and true freshman Peyton Ramsey. However, it is evident that Lagow and Diamont are the top two starting candidates. Both guys have received the most first-team reps in practice.
Hoosiers’ head coach Kevin Wilson made it clear he is looking for one definitive starter in preseason. He is not interested in running a two-quarterback system; like he did with Sudfeld and Tre Roberson in 2013.
"“So five guys are in it. We’re not going to be equal, not trying to be fair. A few years ago I tried to be equal and fair, and all I did was make everybody mad. They got equal reps and equal throws and equal opportunity, and everybody was getting mad. We were trying to be so fair to everyone that egos got involved.’’"
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It will be interesting to see who emerges as the Indiana Hoosiers’ starting quarterback. The Hoosiers’ season opener at Florida International University is less than a month away.