Indiana football escaped Northwestern with its 20th straight win, but nobody in Bloomington was pretending it was pretty.
The Hoosiers were pushed for 60 minutes in a 29-23 victory over a Northwestern team that had opened the season 2-0 and arrived with a new offensive coordinator, a transfer quarterback and several fresh pieces in place. Even so, this was supposed to be a mismatch against the then-No. 5 team in the nation. Instead, Indiana had to survive a serious scare to keep its Big Ten streak intact.
Head coach Curt Cignetti didn’t sugarcoat it Monday, calling the performance “inconsistent” in his press conference.
Indiana never trailed and finished with a 147-yard edge in total offense, but the Hoosiers still left plenty on the field. That was especially true at quarterback.
Redshirt senior Josh Hoover finished 19 of 29 for 201 yards and a touchdown, but the box score only told part of the story. He missed too many throws early, including an overthrown vertical shot to junior wide receiver Nick Marsh that could have been an easy touchdown, plus an underthrow and another overthrow to junior wide receiver Charlie Becker on the same first-quarter drive.
Hoover did settle in at times. His second-quarter scoring march, which pushed Indiana ahead 12-0, was spotless: 6 for 6, 70 yards and a passing touchdown.
He also added a rushing score late in the fourth quarter. But the unevenness was impossible to ignore, and Indiana will need sharper ball placement as Big Ten play rolls on.
The backfield, meanwhile, carried the day.
Junior Turbo Richard entered the game with 315 total rushing yards and four touchdowns at 7.7 yards per carry, but his night ended early in the second quarter after a hard tackle out of bounds. Before leaving, he had already piled up nine carries for 68 yards.
That shifted the load to redshirt senior Lee Beebe Jr., and he answered with the performance of the night. The Montgomery, Alabama, native set a career high with 203 rushing yards on 24 carries, highlighted by a 70-yard burst in the fourth quarter.
Indiana’s ground game kept churning through contact, and Beebe’s running was the difference between control and collapse. Without it, Northwestern may have pulled off the upset.
If Hoover’s passing had been cleaner in the first half, the receivers might have gotten even more credit. As it stood, junior wide receiver Nick Marsh and junior wide receiver Charlie Becker still made the most of their chances.
Marsh caught five passes for 52 yards and a touchdown, while Becker hauled in seven for 98 yards. Together, they accounted for 150 of Indiana’s 201 receiving yards.
Marsh and graduate student Shazz Preston also contributed key blocks that helped spring bigger runs.
There’s still room for more from Preston, graduate student Tyler Morris and sophomore Davion Chandler in the passing game, though. Right now, too much of their value is coming as blockers rather than targets.
Up front, Indiana’s offensive line helped fuel 271 rushing yards from three backs, but the group also made life harder than it needed to be. The Hoosiers were flagged for four offensive penalties, and three came before the ball was even snapped.
Graduate student center Bray Lynch was charged with two illegal snaps before the first play from scrimmage. Indiana also missed the kind of blocker it had last season in tight end Riley Nowakowski, particularly on the right side, and Northwestern made the Hoosiers pay with two sacks and four tackles for loss.
The defensive front started fast enough to set the tone. On Northwestern’s first snap from its own 1-yard line, junior Daniel Ndukwe shot through the middle and forced a safety by swarming Wildcats senior quarterback Aidan Chiles in the end zone.
That early punch helped Indiana post a first-half shutout. But the Wildcats found more room after halftime, with Chiles escaping pressure and extending plays into chunk gains.
Even so, there were bright spots. Graduate student Stephen Daley looked much more like himself, finishing with seven tackles, two quarterback hurries, a sack and two forced fumbles. Redshirt senior Tobi Osunsanmi led the Hoosiers with two tackles for loss.
The linebackers did enough to help Indiana control the first half, when Northwestern managed only 56 passing yards, but the second half brought more stress. Chiles started slipping out of pressure and getting into the second level on scrambles. Junior Rolijah Hardy made eight tackles, and redshirt senior Isaiah Jones added seven, but the unit didn’t generate the kind of disruptive plays it produced a year ago.
The secondary held up early too, then came apart in spots once the pass rush faded. Seventh-year Preston Zachman was targeted six times and gave up 77 yards, while senior Amare Ferrell allowed 34 passing yards.
Chiles finished 22 of 29 for 293 yards and two touchdowns. On the other hand, sophomore Jaylen Bell and redshirt senior Jamari Sharpe each prevented a completion when thrown at.
Special teams gave Indiana a clean finish. Senior kicker Nico Radicic returned after missing games against Howard University and Western Kentucky University with an injury, and he was perfect, hitting field goals from 22 and 43 yards and adding three extra points.
Graduate student linebacker Jeff Utzinger made two tackles on kickoff returns and earned one of the coaching staff’s players of the week honors. After a rough outing the week before, this was a tidy, dependable showing from that group.
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