My Two Cents: It Can't Hurt to Start Grant Gremel at Quarterback Against Purdue

Since true freshman quarterback Donaven McCulley still seems a bit overwhelmed by the college game, it might be time for Indiana to turn to walk-on Grant Gremel at quarterback for the Purdue game, because he is more of a pass-first quarterback.

Tom Brew | Nov 21, 2021

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — It wasn't the plan in June or July, and it wasn't the plan in August or September, either. There was never a plan for Indiana's coaching staff to play 18-year-old Donaven McCulley meaningful minutes at quarterback this fall, and for a very good reason.

He wasn't ready.

McCulley, a true freshman out of Lawrence North High School, is going to be a good college quarterback one day. But that day is still a long way off. He's an athletic kid who played both football and basketball at a high level in high school, but he just doesn't have the reps under his belt to be ready to play quarterback in the Big Ten.

That was proven again on Saturday, with the Hoosiers lost 35-14 to Minnesota to end the home portion of their 2021 schedule, finishing with just one home win in six tries. The Hoosiers are 2-9 now, and 0-8 in Big Ten games.

They have been terrible. And those nine losses? Almost all of them can be directly related to poor quarterback play. Oh sure, there are other factors as well, but that's at the top of the list of problems, for sure.

Indiana's offense? What say you, Tom Allen?

"It was not good enough," Indiana coach TomAllen said. "It's not to our standard, and it's not acceptable. And it's not been that way for most of the season."

Indiana's offense has been epic bad this season. They have scored seven points or less in five of the eight Big Ten games. In two of the others — Saturday night against Minnesota and in a home loss to Michigan State — it took a fourth quarter TD just to post a second score.

And trust me, I'm not trying to rip the kid here at all. Donaven McCulley is a really good kid who works hard and is a terrific athlete. But he's just in over his head at this moment, and he's also trying to run an Indiana offense that has a ton of other troubles, too, a woefully underachieving offensive line, a regressing set of receivers and a running backs room full of walk-ons after the Hoosiers burned through their first four running backs already, either through injury (Stephen Carr, David Ellis) or transfer (Sampson James, Tim Baldwin, Jr.).

It's not a stretch to call it a no-win situation, because that's literally what it's been. Indiana has now lost seven games in a row. This is the same Indiana that went 6-1 in the Big Ten a year ago — but it's also CLEARLY not the same Indiana.

McCulley ran the ball 16 times for 72 yards on Saturday and led the Hoosiers to a touchdown on their opening drive, but he was just 3-for-7 passing for a grand total of 17 yards on the day. He also had two very ugly interceptions on balls that should never have been thrown. After the TD, the next six drives ended with four punts and the two interceptions, with just one total first down and a meager 24 yards of total offense on 19 plays.

He just can't process everything well enough to be successful in the passing game. Here's a good example. Against Ohio State, Michigan, Rutgers and Minnesota, when he played he bulk of all four losses, McCulley is 21-for-57 passing — that's 36.8 percent for those of you who don't do math — for 233 total yards. That's not even 60 yards per game.

Sure, he hit some big throws in the Maryland game on Oct. 30 — going 14-for-25 for 242 yards, but 153 of those yards came on four completions. It's a bit of an outlier.

Sure, he can run, but the passing game completely confuses him. And making decisions with run-pass-option plays (RPOs) has been too much, too, especially Saturday night. There were far too many times when he ran when he should have thrown, Allen said, and killer times when he threw into trouble instead of running.

"You've got to be able throw the football," Allen said. "I get it, you run the ball with him, and he can run the ball. That's great. But it says dual-threat. Dual means he can do both. If you're not doing both, then you're one-dimensional. That's why that word is what it is."

This has been going on for so long now that it's wearing everyone down. Even the few weapons that Indiana has on offense aren't even getting involved. Top receiver Ty Fryfogle had one catch — for minus-3 yards — and tight end Peyton Hendershot wasn't targeted at all. Not once.

This has all become crushing to all involved.

"It's been a nightmare that we can't wake up from,'' Hendershot said Saturday night.

He also said that it's not just on McCulley. Full disclosure: Veteran quarterbacks Michael Penix Jr. and Jack Tuttle weren't very good either before they went down win shoulder and foot injuries respectively.

"I think it's a collective effort," Hendershot said. "Sometimes here it's tight ends, sometimes here it's the receivers. Sometimes it's the linemen. Sometimes it's the quarterback. As a whole collective, we just have to do a better job of doing our job, so we can hopefully help the defense out and help our team win a game."

The Hoosiers have one game left, and that's a big one, the Old Oaken Bucket game at Purdue next Saturday. The Hoosiers got the Bucket back with an overtime win in West Lafayette in 2019 and two tries to get the game in last year didn't happen because of major COVID-19 outbreaks at both schools.

Indiana would love to keep the Bucket, but that sure seems like a longshot. Purdue has had a nice bounce-back season and is currently 7-4, and 5-3 in the Big Ten.

We know now that McCulley is struggling to throw the ball, and Purdue's defense could make him one-dimensional too. Indiana can't beat Purdue with 60 minutes of a McCulley-led offense.

There is an alternative. Allen could decide to start walk-on quarterback Grant Gremel instead of McCulley. The Noblesville, Ind., native has been in the system for three years and is a passer by trade. He moved the ball in mop-up duty on Saturday, and even threw his first touchdown pass, a 29-yarder to true freshman wideout Malachi Holt-Bennett.

Why not, right? There's nothing to lose.

Allen said he is open to the idea and will see how the week plays out.

"Absolutely, whatever we have to do to beat Purdue," Allen said on the possibility of making a change. "That's the bottom line. To me, everything is on the table. We have one game left, and it's the biggest game of the season because it's the next one, but we know it's Purdue, which makes it extra special."

Allen likes the way Gremel throws the ball. Even more, he likes that he doesn't look frazzled. That means a lot

"The thing that has stood out to me is that he looks comfortable, even against Ohio State in that stretch there in a tough situation,'' Allen said

"We've got a stable full of running backs that are walk-ons, so we might as well add him to the crew at quarterback. The bottom line is next man up, step up, make plays and if you're good enough, we're going to put you in there."

There is legitimate concern that Indiana might be doing more harm than good for McCulley right now. It happens in the NFL too when a young quarterback gets thrown into the fire too soon. The experience can oftentimes be so overwhelming that they don't recover.

“We’ve had these conversations,” Allen said. “You play somebody too soon and then it makes it hard. But (we) didn’t have a choice, and you want to be able to build off each week, and sometimes when the negatives happen, it can start going the other direction.”

The Hoosiers are at those crossroads right now with McCulley. Penix and Tuttle probably aren't available next week, either. It might just be time to give Gremel a shot.

Crazier stories have been told.

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