Indiana almost gets another one, but falls 52-49 to No. 8 Ohio State
By CHRIS GOFF
ISL Correspondent
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – When Christian Watford swished an arching 3-pointer to beat Kentucky, Indiana basketball found its eight-point buck to mount on the wall.
Tom Crean had won just 28 games in his first three seasons. Then, finally, the attention-getter. Something to show recruits. A message to the world. A ˜W’ for the sake of a ˜W.’ A shock to patterns of thought, a sign that the narrative was about to change.
Hoosier football keeps firing those arrows. Lately, they’ve been fast and accurate. But the eight-point buck keeps dodging, and Indiana’s mantle stays empty.
After Saturday’s 52-49 tease against No. 8 Ohio State, the Hoosiers still have not beaten a ranked opponent since edging No. 24 Northwestern in 2008.
That’s got to change, and coach Kevin Wilson knows it.
Close isn’t good enough, he said. Until we get ˜W’s, it’s all smoke and mirrors, feel-good fluff.
In a wild game of intense momentum shifts, Indiana was left to explain peaks too short and valleys too wide. And, of course, the fact that a shaky defense yielded 52 carries for 357 yards and three touchdowns to Ohio State rushers.
Eddie George probably felt he could jump off his couch and run for 10 yards.
The trouble for Wilson is that playing to his team’s biggest strength is magnifying its biggest weakness.
Four of Indiana’s first five possessions Saturday took less than a minute off the game clock. During that stretch, Wilson tried to rev the engines on Indiana’s fast-paced passing attack, allowing for 13 throws countered by just five running plays.
But while the Hoosiers tried to force quarterback Cameron Coffman into a rhythm he would never find in the first half, their defense was left out there long enough for the Indiana Election Commission to accept the Memorial Stadium FieldTurf as a home address.
Indiana punted six times in eight first-half drives, none of which lasted longer than 2:31. By the end of the third quarter, Ohio State had literally doubled Indiana’s time of possession: 30:36 to 14:24.
Coffman is not a good enough quarterback to just rear back and win shootouts against quality conference opponents, nor is the Hoosier offense as a whole consistent enough to wheel and deal all day long without a care for defensive teammates.
Instead of protecting a unit with little depth, Wilson chooses to run his hurry-up-and-throw, no-huddle system and sacrifice time of possession.
We like to attack, Coffman said. It’s kind of how we play. At times, we’re hot. At times, we’re not.
Asked if his defense wore down due to relative lack of rest, Wilson offered no direct answer. Instead, he theorized the time issue had more to do with Buckeyes coach Urban Meyer’s offense than his own.
A lot of their passing game is play-action, Wilson said. It’s going to be high-percentage. The clock’s going to move.
Wilson added that Indiana is at a disadvantage without a quarterback who can use his legs. And that’s true. While Coffman and Nate Sudfeld might be equal to the injured Tre Roberson as throwers, they lack his ability to threaten defenses by scrambling. It’s a missing dimension, one highlighted even more so on a night when Buckeye quarterback Braxton Miller rushed for 149 yards and a score.
But that doesn’t mean the defense can’t be protected from a recurring problem. Against Ball State, Northwestern, Michigan State and Ohio State, co-coordinators Doug Mallory and Mike Ekeler watched their defenders meet the same fate in crunch time: fatigue, weary legs, lapses in focus, weak tackling and decreased effectiveness.
The offense needs to throw them a life raft by watching the clock, using running back Stephen Houston (11 carries for 91 yards and two TDs) more earlier in the game and letting receivers Cody Latimer and Kofi Hughes run routes that clear safeties off the first-down line.
More than anything, it’s about producing consistently across a 60-minute game, rather than flourishing in fits and starts.
To seize that signature victory, Indiana’s defense simply cannot be exhausted when the game is on the line. That was the case Saturday, as evidenced by Devin Smith’s 46-yard, catch-and-run TD in the fourth quarter. Defensive backs Antonio Marshall, Garrett Welch and Alexander Webb whiffed on tackles, and a pass that never should have gone for six, did.
In fact, it was that score which protected Ohio State against Sudfeld’s comeback attempt.
Indiana takes a vacation from big-game hunting against Navy next week. But when an elite Big Ten school next looms on the opposite sideline, Wilson needs to spot his defense a wider berth.
The only thing stopping us is us, said Wilson, not referring to the time-of-possession issue, though he easily could have been.
In the meantime, even at 2-4, these Hoosiers look far more competitive than last season’s disastrous 1- 11 outfit.
We fight all day, receiver Shane Wynn said. We’re not like the old IU teams.
But for a program with just one winning season since 1994, until they mount that big deer head above the fireplace, no one will tell the difference.
