No. 7 Indiana had to grind for this one.
The Hoosiers, who had not trailed at any point this season before Saturday, came from behind to edge Nebraska 20-17 in Lincoln and stay unbeaten. Indiana didn’t lead until late in the fourth quarter, and even then it still had to survive a final Nebraska push before the result was secure.
Nebraska set the tone early with a long opening march, chewing up 13 plays and 66 yards before settling for a 28-yard field goal. Senior quarterback Anthony Colandrea did the heavy lifting on that drive, completing four passes and adding 28 rushing yards to get the Cornhuskers inside the Indiana 10.
Indiana answered quickly enough to avoid letting the game slip away early. On just the second play from scrimmage, redshirt senior quarterback Josh Hoover found junior wide receiver Charlie Becker for a 43-yard gain. The drive eventually stalled in Nebraska territory, but senior kicker Nico Radicic tied things at 3-3 with a 42-yard field goal.
That didn’t slow Nebraska down for long. Colandrea hit senior wide receiver Nyziah Hunter for 24 yards on third-and-12, and three plays later Hunter finished the drive himself with a 10-yard reverse into the end zone. Nebraska carried a 10-3 lead out of the first quarter.
The Cornhuskers kept pressing after that, putting together a 16-play drive with a chance to add to the margin before halftime. Instead, they came away empty after missing a 40-yard field goal.
Indiana finally found some rhythm to open the third quarter. Hoover completed four passes for 38 yards and scrambled for 10 more to push the Hoosiers into the red zone, but the drive ended with another field goal, this one from 35 yards, trimming the deficit but not erasing it.
The Hoosiers still had trouble getting Nebraska off the field. Colandrea converted a fourth-and-2 with an eight-yard run, but Indiana answered with a sack two plays later and then picked him off on third down.
For a stretch, the game turned into a punt exchange. Then Nebraska struck again. Colandrea found a lane on a keeper and slipped past freshman linebacker Jacob Savage on the way to a 39-yard touchdown run, stretching the lead and putting Indiana in an 11-point hole.
That’s when Indiana’s offense finally snapped awake.
On the first play of the next series, Hoover hit Marsh on a crossing route over the middle, and the receiver outran the Nebraska defense for a 75-yard touchdown. After a defensive stop, Indiana had a shot to take the lead, and Hoover went right back to Marsh.
On fourth-and-1 from the Nebraska 44, the Cornhuskers bit on the run and Marsh was left alone for a 44-yard touchdown. Indiana had its first lead at 20-17 with a little more than seven minutes left.
Nebraska got one last chance to answer. Down three and facing fourth down with under five minutes to go, the Cornhuskers went for it, but Indiana stopped them on a turnover on downs.
The Hoosiers couldn’t put the game away on the next possession and had to punt it back.
Nebraska started at its own 5 with under four minutes left and moved 40 yards on a string of completions from Colandrea, but two straight incompletions forced another fourth down. Indiana fifth-year defensive lineman Tobi Osunsanmi then delivered the sack that slammed the door.
Indiana still couldn’t simply kneel it out. Redshirt senior running back Lee Beebe Jr. was stopped on three straight carries, giving Nebraska 13 seconds for one final shot at a tying score. The Hoosiers held firm and walked out with the 20-17 win.
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 🡒]