When the Hoosiers trotted to the locker room at the halftime break on Saturday, they knew they were in position to compete for the win. Down just three points against No. 4 Ohio State and set to receive the second-half kickoff, a small comeback was more than possible.
Although No. 5 Indiana was close enough to contend, the Hoosiers left a few too many opportunities on the field in the first half of what would become a 19-15 loss at home.
“That was a tough one not to win,” Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti said after the game. “I thought our kids gave great effort and fight, and hung in there and put ourselves in position to win the close game. Had so many opportunities to get it done, not only at the end of the game, but throughout the game.”
After Indiana defensive back Amare Ferrell’s first of two interceptions, the Hoosiers initiated offense from the opposing 7-yard line. Two plays later, Indiana running back Turbo Richard dashed down the left seam and into the end zone.
Indiana owned a 7-3 lead because of that effort, but never delivered a dagger in the form of an additional score to extend the lead to two possessions. Late in the first half, Indiana quarterback Josh Hoover targeted Richard in the red zone, but the pass was too far out in front of him. Tight end Brock Schott simultaneously stood wide open but unseen in the corner of the end zone.
So, Ohio State stayed alive, and marched down the field to take the lead before the break.
“We had a lot of opportunity out there that we didn’t cash in on,” Cignetti said, “particularly in the second half, but there was quite a bit in the first half, too.”
Indiana’s lack of an authoritative triumph persisted into the start of the second half, when Indiana began with the ball, but fumbled away its first two possessions. First, wide receiver Davion Chandler caught a pass 19 yards downfield, but coughed it up for the Buckeyes to recover. On the next series, Ohio State safety Jaylen McClain blitzed from the secondary and sprinted into the backfield, blasting Hoover from his blind side. The ball flew out of Hoover’s hands, and the Buckeyes recovered it once again.
On top of that, kicker Nico Radicic left a 55-yard field goal just short of the goalpost at the end of Indiana’s last offensive drive of the third quarter, after missing a 32-yard field goal earlier in the game as well.
“We had the field goal,” Cignetti said, “55-yarder was just a little about out of his range with that wind condition. He hit it good. Would’ve been right down the middle.”
Still, Indiana remained in contention to claim victory, with the defense supplying ample assistance on the other end. Ferrell snagged two interceptions, and the defensive front tallied four sacks and six tackles for loss. Jeremiah Smith, Ohio State’s remarkable wide receiver who led the Big Ten in receiving yards by 288 yards entering Saturday, caught just four passes for 68 yards on Saturday.
This encounter, a rematch of the most recent Big Ten championship game, was a brutal battle. Points were sparse, and inches determined the result more than any other imperial unit of measurement. Victory hung in the balance throughout the entire afternoon. Neither the Buckeyes or the Hoosiers could step up and capture it until the final few minutes.
Even while holding the lead, Indiana never executed an effective, authoritative attack.
So, late in the game and on the road, Ohio State did it first.
Indiana found itself down by 12 points with less than 13 minutes remaining in the game when Ohio State quarterback Julian Sayin launched a rocket to Smith, who brought the ball down for a 70-yard touchdown. It was a dagger in the fourth quarter. As close to a death blow as either team would come to in this tightly contested, low-scoring war.
Indiana drove 75 yards down the field on the ensuing possession and secured its first score not prompted by a takeaway or outrageously advantageous field position. A 19-yard touchdown pass to Nick Marsh and a successful 2-point conversion attempt cut the deficit to four points, but at least one more stop and at least one more score stood between the Hoosiers and a late lead.
Suddenly, just like in the first half, victory no longer resided within the clutches of the Buckeyes. Instead, it floated over the heads of two teams that couldn’t quite confidently claim it.
Leading by four points in the first half, Indiana couldn’t secure full control over the contest, and lost the lead mere moments later. Down by four points in the fourth quarter, despite the deficit and the abundance of opportunities missed earlier in the afternoon, the Hoosiers still could have found the fatal hit necessary to knock off the Buckeyes — but they didn’t.
“We’re fighters,” Hoover said, “and we’ve got a lot of guys in that locker room who don’t quit.”
Fighters, but in this game, not killers.
Indiana wasn’t a killer. You have to be a killer.
To beat the elites, underdogs must take matters into their own hands and capture victory as soon as the opportunity presents itself. Indiana had a litany of opportunities, but never closed the deal. The best of those chances came on Indiana’s very last offensive possession in the form of Hoover’s deep pass to Marsh from under pressure on fourth down, which could've become that death blow, but Marsh stepped out of bounds before ensuring that at least one of his feet hit red turf.
“They brought the house,” Hoover said. “We knew they were going to pressure us right there and Nick (Marsh) ran a good route. I didn’t really have time to sit there and see where he was going so I just tried to put it up in the air, put it to a spot and – shoot, it’s a game of inches.”
Indiana was close, even outgaining the Buckeyes by 56 yards and scoring four more points off of the equal amount of turnovers given up by each team, but the Hoosiers didn’t finish it. They never lifted victory firmly out of the reach of the opposition. They weren't killers.
“We had it,” Cignetti said, “we just didn’t make it happen. So it’s a hard one to swallow, but we’ll learn from it and move on.”
Last season, the version of Indiana that won the national title either delivered decisive strikes in critical moments against elite adversaries, or lifted victory far out of the opponent’s reach so swiftly and handily that no critical moments even existed late in the game.
In the national championship game last season, up by three points with nine minutes left on the clock, Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza was a killer when he bravely barreled to the end zone on fourth down.
If this version of Indiana is to achieve similar success to the last, it has to be a killer, specifically against the very best of the Big Ten and beyond.
Indiana wasn’t a killer on Saturday against Ohio State, so it lost for the first time since December 2024 and for the first time at home since November 2023.
Ohio State might be the only true national title contender on Indiana’s regular-season schedule, and therefore, is perhaps the only opponent that presents the Hoosiers with the opportunity to learn from a desirable, or in this case undesirable, result in a matchup of this magnitude.
For the first time in forever, the Hoosiers lost — because unlike last season, at least against the best of the Big Ten and beyond, this version of Indiana isn’t yet a killer.
