Josh Sanguinetti made a tremendous play, and Indiana had a chance. A chance for a something that had not happened in nearly four decades: A road win over a top-10 team. But Indiana got conservative on offense, didn’t go for a go-ahead touchdown and lost 33-24 on the road to No. 10 Penn State. Tom Allen explains:
A chance for a something that had not happened in nearly four decades: A road win over a top-10 team.
After Sanguinetti picked off Drew Allar at the Penn State 28 and returned the ball seven yards, Indiana had a first down at the Nittany Lion 21, down 24-21, 5:02 to play.
The Hoosiers had a chance to try for the lead — and with the way its defense had been playing to that point, possibly a historic win.
Indiana hadn’t beaten a top-10 on the road since Oct. 10, 1987, when it won 31-10 at No. 9 Ohio State.
But it didn’t happen on Saturday.
After Sanguinetti’s interception, the Hoosiers ran the the ball three times, gaining 1 yard, 1 yard, and 2 yards, and settled for a tying field goal with 2:58 to play.
Three plays later, Allar hit KeAndre Lambert-Smith for a 57-yard touchdown with 1:46 to play, and the 10th-ranked Nittany Lions added a safety to hand the Hoosiers the 33-24 loss.
The biggest question for the Hoosiers after the game was simple: Why not at least try for a touchdown after Sanguinetti’s interception since they were already in field goal range in a three-point game?
“If you watch the game, we had actually done that to kind of set some things up. You know, we were running the ball really, really well. And when we got the third down, we talked real quickly, said, hey, we’re in feel good range. Don’t risk the take away. They’re really good at taking the ball away,” IU coach Tom Allen told Sammy Jacobs of Hoosier Huddle after the game.
“They’re a great pressure team on third-and-6. And we felt, we’re already in field goal range. It was just we thought the smart thing to do was to not put ourselves in position to give away those points and lose the game that way. So that was the thought process.
“There was agreement on that, and I actually agree with that decision to do that once we get third down. Now obviously you’d like to be able to get to where you’re gonna get the touchdown. So I said guys, ‘Let’s go score a touchdown.’ You know, the whole goal was a score test in that situation.
“You don’t want to leave it to overtime or tie game or whatever. But once you get the third long, you know, just their defense is really really good on third downs and obviously salty, and they got a lot of good pass rushers, got NFL type defensive lineman that can really be challenging for your offense to prove the pressures on you. So that was the thought process.”
On the possession prior to Sanguinetti’s interception, Indiana quarterback Brendan Sorsby did appear on TV to be grimacing with shoulder pain after being hit on a touchdown pass to Omar Cooper. Even so, Sorsby returned to the game without missing a snap.
“We wouldn’t put him out to there if we didn’t think — we had to have him warm up. You know, he got hit in the shoulder on the touchdown throw to Omar Cooper, and they checked him out. He threw a little bit. He was a little bit sore for sure, but he was good enough to throw. It wasn’t because of his shoulder.”
The loss dropped the Hoosiers to 2-6 with four games remaining: Home vs. Wisconsin, at Illinois, home vs. Michigan State and at Purdue.
Considering the way this season had been going and all of the speculation about what could be next for IU football, what did Indiana have to lose by trying for a touchdown with under five minutes to play with at least one throw into or toward the end zone?
Instead, Indiana called three consecutive runs by Josh Henderson, gained only four yards to the Penn State 17 and settled for the tying field goal.
Seventy two seconds later, Penn State had the lead again.
Thirteen seconds after that, Sorsby was sacked, fumbled, there was a mad scramble for the ball, but the ball bounced out of the end zone for a safety and a 33-24 Penn State lead.
Game over.
Indiana actually played well enough to win the game.
Prior to Sanguinetti’s interception, Indiana’s defense had allowed just 24 points, and 10 of those came off IU mistakes — a Penn State drive after a muffed punt and a Sorsby interception.
Penn State entered the game second in the country in points per game at 39.7. IU’s defense was playing well above after and gave the Hoosiers a chance to win when they were 32-point underdogs in Las Vegas.
The Nittany Lions were also second in the country in scoring defense, allowing just 9.7 points per game.
New Indiana offensive coordinator Rod Carey dialed up some nice pass plays.
Against the nation’s second-ranked passing defense, Sorsby completed 13 of 19 passes for 269 yards and three touchdowns, including a 90-yard touchdown pass to DeQuece Carter, a 69-yard touchdown catch by Donaven McCulley and 26-yard touchdown pass to Cooper.
Sorsby did have a costly mistake, throwing an interception with 1:01 to play in the first half and the Hoosiers with the ball on the Penn State 45. The Nittany Lions got a field goal to go up 17-14 at halftime.
IU wasn’t storming the gates offensively, but against the nation’s second-ranked scoring defense, the Hoosiers were doing enough to have a chance to win.
Defensively, Aaron Casey was stud again (game-high tying 10 tackles with seven of them solo), Louis Moore had 10 tackles, seven of them solo, and a forced fumble; defensive lineman Andre Carter had eight tackles; and the Hoosiers as a whole had six tackles for loss.
And Sanguinetti with the monster interception in the late going.
Prior to Penn State’s go-ahead touchdown with 2:56 to play, the Nittany Lions had 11 possessions, and on those, the Hoosiers allowed only only two drives of more than 32 yards.
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