Indiana looked headed for a frustrating afternoon in Lincoln, but the Hoosiers flipped the game late and walked out of Memorial Stadium with a 20-17 win over Nebraska on Saturday.
The difference came in the fourth quarter, when Indiana finally found life on offense and paired it with a defense that shut the door just long enough to finish the job. The Hoosiers are now 6-0 overall and 3-0 in the Big Ten, and they return home next weekend to host Ohio State.
Josh Hoover and Nick Marsh were the spark. With Indiana trailing 17-6 and just 12 minutes left, Hoover hit Marsh for a 75-yard touchdown on a crosser, then went back to him on a 4th-and-1 play fake for a 44-yard score.
Nebraska had kept IU out of the end zone for the first three quarters and change, but those two strikes changed everything in a hurry. Marsh finished with six catches for 187 yards and the two touchdowns, while Hoover went 12 of 22 for 263 yards.
He now has 17 touchdown passes and no interceptions on the season.
Indiana’s defense did its part when it mattered most. The Hoosiers had a rough time getting Nebraska off the field for much of the game, but on the Cornhuskers’ final four drives they got the stops they needed.
IU forced a punt, then stopped Nebraska on downs on three straight fourth-quarter possessions before the clock ran out to end it. That late stretch looked a lot different from the opening phases, when Nebraska put together long drives - four of its first five possessions went at least 10 plays - and scored 10 points on its first two series.
The bigger story was Indiana’s refusal to let the game slip away. For most of the afternoon, it had the feel of a loss in waiting.
Nebraska controlled the clock, Indiana couldn’t get the run game going, and through three quarters the Huskers had run 56 plays to IU’s 31 while holding a 30-to-15 edge in time of possession. But the Hoosiers stayed with it, made the needed adjustments, and owned the fourth quarter.
Indiana produced 142 of its 328 total yards in the final period, and the defense added two sacks and two more tackles for loss in that frame.
In Other News...
Indiana's Ohio State Showdown Just Got An Extra Reason To Sting
Indianas Week 7 meeting with Ohio State already had the feel of a national spotlight game, with two top-ranked teams and recent champions set to collide in Bloomington. It is the kind of matchup that usually draws every possible camera, bus and broadcast personality, especially when a program like Indiana has a chance to host one of the sports biggest brands on its own field.
Instead, the pregame stage will be elsewhere. ESPNs College GameDay is headed to Provo for Notre Dames trip to BYU, leaving Memorial Stadium without the show that so often signals college footballs biggest Saturday. For Indiana, it adds a little more edge to an already massive showdown, with the Hoosiers still left to prove their place in a game plenty of people expected to be impossible to ignore. [Read more 🡒]
Curt Cignetti Saw One Indiana Problem That Nearly Cost Them
Indianas perfect start survived a tense road test at Nebraska, where the Hoosiers dug out of a double-digit fourth-quarter hole and left Lincoln with a 20-17 win to move to 6-0. Curt Cignetti did not hide from how close it came, acknowledging that his team spent too much of the night battling itself before finding enough answers to pull it out.
The encouraging part for Indiana is that the resilience showed up when it mattered, with key plays helping flip the game late and keep the unbeaten run intact. Still, Cignetti pointed to one area that needs work, saying the rushing attack has to get better as the staff goes back through the film and sorts out what nearly cost the Hoosiers a victory. [Read more 🡒]
Curt Cignetti Gave Hoosiers Fans A Brutal New Debate Against Nebraska
Indianas offense spent most of the afternoon looking nothing like the version Curt Cignetti has built in Bloomington, and the frustration had already spilled over well before the game reached its closing stretch. Against unranked Nebraska, the Hoosiers managed only six points until early in the fourth quarter, and the first-half numbers were among the poorest of Cignettis tenure, a jarring turn for a team that has otherwise spent much of the season building momentum.
Even with the attack stuck in neutral, Indianas defense kept the game within reach by holding Nebraska to 10 points through three quarters. That gave the Hoosiers a path back, and they eventually nudged ahead midway through the fourth, but the bigger question hanging over the night was harder to ignore: how much of the offensive mess belonged to execution, and how much pointed back to the coach making the decisions. [Read more 🡒]