Sunday Morning Quarterback: Western Kentucky

At halftime of Saturday’s Indiana-Western Kentucky game, with the Hoosiers trailing by 11 points, I told a couple of colleagues on press row that Indiana had the Hilltoppers right where it wanted them.

There was a laugh or two and some shaking of heads and then like clockwork, Indiana went out and outscored WKU 21-0 in the third and went on to win, 38-35.

Indiana has now trailed all three of its opponents to date at halftime and has come back to win all three games.

Good pattern? Probably not. But here is what I’m choosing to take away from this at this point in the season.

For the first time that I can remember in all of my years covering Indiana football, the ‘Here we go again’ mentality may finally be a thing of the past for the Hoosiers.

In past years whenever bad things would happen, that little voice would go off in the back of people’s heads whether they were watching the game on television, listening to it on the radio or sitting in the stands at Memorial Stadium that would say, ‘Here we go again.’ I know for a fact that players thought about it like that, too. I’ve had several players over the years confirm that to me. Especially the older guys that had been through it a few times before.

But this group doesn’t appear to feel that way. And if they do, it’s a different kind of ‘Here we go again’. Now, it means, here we go again as in let’s go out and rally to win the game.

It’s a complete shift in the mentality of a football team.

But in order for Indiana to compete for postseason play and beyond it was a shift that had to take place.

At the very core, this football team has to believe it can find a way to win. And with a balanced offensive attack as Indiana possesses, it’s easy to see why the team believes.

Saturday, a couple of turnovers by WKU really came in handy in that third quarter. That blocked field goal didn’t hurt either. But Indiana showed that it can play smash mouth football and go right after you, too.

Here are a couple of things I liked:

*** One of the most impressive things about Indiana Saturday was that IU had touchdown drives of 99 and 97 yards. And on those drives it never panicked, it just continued to go to the well which was Jordan Howard or Devine Redding and good things were happening.

*** How many times in recent years did Indiana find itself in third and two or third and one, and not be able to gain that critical yard or two? It was better last year with Tevin Coleman but it’s much different now. Now you have a back in Howard who hits that hole hard and can get the yards.

And get this? Indiana had 18 first downs rushing the football on Saturday. There have been years where that might be a four-game total or more.

*** I also like the run after the catch abilities of players like Simmie Cobbs, Ricky Jones, Mitchell Paige or even Howard. A couple of those scores yesterday were fun to watch.

Now, no one is looking past the fact that Indiana has given up 104 points in three games on its way to a 3-0 start. But I still think the prospects are good. The Wake Forest game has always been the one I’ve been most concerned about only because of IU’s track record on the road against non-conference opponents. The Missouri win last year was the exception. The Bowling Green loss last year was more of the rule.

The good thing I think IU has going in its favor though is that ‘Here we go again’ in 2015 means something completely different than it has in the past.