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Friday, March 29
The Indiana Daily Student

sports football

IU’s upset bid falls short in 36-33 loss

IU-Michigan Football

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – All the parts were in place for a larger-than-life upset. After IU freshman running back Darius Willis sprinted to an 85-yard touchdown run late in the fourth quarter, the Hoosiers just needed to make one stop.

Instead, No. 23 Michigan marched down the field and scored a touchdown on a 26-yard pass from freshman quarterback Tate Forcier to Martavious Owens, and the Wolverines survived Saturday’s game 36-33.

IU had one more opportunity to take the lead, but quarterback Ben Chappell threw an interception on a short pass attempt to Damarlo Belcher on the first play of IU’s final drive. Belcher and Michigan cornerback Donovan Warren appeared to simultaneously catch the ball, but Warren wrestled the ball out of Belcher’s hands. The referees confirmed the interception after reviewing the play.

“I couldn’t see it – we’ll have to watch it on film,” Chappell said about the interception. “We had plenty of opportunities on offense where we could have made better plays and we probably would have won the game.”

Early in the fourth quarter, Forcier scored a seven-yard touchdown run to give his team a 33-29 lead.

The Hoosiers responded on the first play of the next drive as Willis ran off a block from the left guard and rushed down the sideline for an 85-yard touchdown run – the longest run by a Hoosier since 1977.

IU set several records in the game, but struggled to convert the offensive’s effectiveness into red zone touchdowns. The 33 points and 467 offensive yards gained were the most against the Wolverines in school history, but IU scored one red zone touchdown on five trips inside the 20-yard line

The Hoosiers settled for four Nick Freeland field goals.

IU coach Bill Lynch said the team’s struggle to score touchdowns was one of the keys to the game.

“When it’s all said and done, that’s the big difference,” Lynch said. “You have to give Michigan’s defense credit.”

In the second quarter, IU sustained one long drive and had two chances to score off Michigan turnovers, but all three drives ended with field goals. Each opportunity stalled either with an incomplete pass or a completion short of the down line on a third-down play.

“We’ve got to capitalize on third-and-short with the short passes” Willis said.  
Two of those drives resulted from the defense forcing turnovers – defensive tackle Nick Sliger intercepted a Forcier pass and defensive end Jammie Kirlew scooped up a fumble to put IU’s offense on each drive at the Michigan 30-yard line.

“You can’t (settle for field goals) and win games,” Chappell said. “They were giving us some different looks…they did a good job in that and we didn’t execute.”

Instead of a potential multiple touchdown lead going into halftime, the Hoosiers led just 23-21 through two quarters.

With 108,118 fans in the stands, the Hoosiers quieted the crowd early with a six-minute drive to open the game. Wide receiver Tandon Doss capped the drive by scampering for 25 yards into the end zone off a pitch from Mitchell Evans.

Michigan matched IU in two plays when Forcier threw a screen pass to running back Carlos Brown who ran 61 yards for a score.

The teams traded two more touchdowns in the first quarter, with Michigan’s Brown scoring a 41-yard touchdown run and IU’s Willis scoring from 11 yards out.

After halftime, IU scored another red zone field goal in the third quarter to set the stage for its upset bid in the fourth.

“We’re disappointed we didn’t win the game,” Chappell said. “We came up here to win and we thought we played well enough in a lot of areas, but a couple things we did wrong cost us the game.”

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