My first thought following Indiana’s gift-wrapped, come-from-ahead, 55-52 loss to Rutgers at home Saturday was that with Indiana football there have always been a couple of hard and fast truths.
1. It’s never easy.
2. No lead is ever safe.
3. Always expect the unexpected.
They all came into play Saturday in Bloomington.
Indiana had a 25-point lead with 5:25 to play in the third quarter after the Hoosiers opened the half scoring 28 unanswered points and took a 52-27 lead.
At most college football programs, it’s game over. Warm up the Rutgers busses, put in some guys that normally don’t get to play and watch the individual statistics soar.
But we all know another truth about Indiana football: IU is not most college football programs.
Just when you think you’ve seen it all with the Hoosiers, something like this happens. You can blame Kevin Wilson (and many will). You can blame some poor decisions by Nate Sudfeld late in the game (and many will). You can blame a defense that in key situations simply can’t get out of its own way (and many will).
You can blame an inopportune bad snap on a punt that resulted in a touchdown. You can blame lack of recognition on a Rutgers fake punt in the first half. You can blame not getting enough consistent pressure on the quarterback throughout the game.
There was plenty of blame to go around. But the reality here is that this game should never have had a chance to get to where Rutgers could come back and win. Good teams and good programs just do not allow that to happen. But once again Indiana football proved that when it comes to those two areas IU is 0-for-2.
So who deserves the most blame for this debacle?
Wilson? If you are one of those people in the camp that the fifth-year head coach needed to find a way to win this season and if not could potentially be shown the door, then you’d have to think a loss like this could provide the straw that broke the camel’s back. No question about it. This was an epic loss. This was one that should have been in the books and yet you let it slip away. Indiana should be 5-2 right now with five games to play and needing just one win to get bowl eligible.
Instead, IU will likely have to beat both Maryland and Purdue on the road to get to a bowl game. While a possibility, that’s far from a sure thing.
But back to Wilson. I remember thinking back in 2010 after IU got ripped on the road at Wisconsin 83-20 that that one embarrassment was going to be tough for Lynch to overcome. And he was let go after the season. But I really felt that went IU left Madison that day that Lynch was a dead coach walking.
If Indiana fails to win six games this year, when people look back at Saturday’s debacle will they think about it in the same way? It’s very possible. The other one was inexcusable for different reasons. This was simply a game that once you got ahead 52-27 you simply could not afford to lose. And when the Hoosiers did … well, draw your own conclusions.
After IU took that big lead, Rutgers came back and scored pretty quickly to make it 52-33. But that should still be a lead, with 17 minutes to play in the game that should be safe.
The next time IU got the ball I thought the Hoosiers got a little conservative. Mike Majette, running the ball for the first time in a game this season on Saturday, got the call on running plays on both first and second down. One went for minus-1 and the other for no gain. Now, you’re in third and long and you get an 8-yard completion. On the first play of the fourth quarter, after deciding to punt from the Rutgers 46, there was a high snap over the head of Erich Toth and the senior didn’t have his finest moment on the play. He tried to pick it up but instead the ball was knocked away and eventually returned the other way for a touchdown. Now it was 52-39.
When IU got the ball back the next time, it looked as the Hoosiers were going to be aggressive again. Ricky Jones caught passes of 13 and 23 yards to get the ball to the Rutgers 40. But then Sudfeld had an incomplete pass, Devine Redding had a 1 yard gain, and on third down Sudfeld threw a pick. On this play, the defender made a nice break on the ball and made an acrobatic grab. Still, Rutgers got the ball back and scored on the next possession to make it 52-46.
This is when I thought Sudfeld really made his most questionable throw of the game. On first down at the IU 25, leading by six points with just under 10 minutes to play, Sudfeld threw a pass in the direction of Mitchell Paige deep down the left sideline. But there were three Rutgers defenders in the area and one of them came up with a pick.
Rutgers needed five plays to go 63 yards and the game was tied. Indiana blocked another extra point to keep it at 52-all. But it was only delaying the inevitable.
Indiana had a three and out and never saw the ball again.
Indiana had a ton of superlative performances. Sudfeld had a career-high passing, the Hoosiers may have found another solid running back with the play of Majette, and three IU receivers had more than 100 yards receiving.
But none of it matters because of the ‘L’. That’s the only statistic you could take out of this game.
And ultimately it could be the only statistic in 2015 that separates Indiana from going to a bowl game.
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