This loss will haunt IU.
Trying to go undefeated in non-conference play for the second consecutive season, IU fell to Wake Forest, 33-28, Saturday.
While it’s only one loss, it feels a whole lot bigger than that, in both the short and the long term.
The contest provided IU with the perfect opportunity to prove what type of team they were before the Hoosiers embarked on a tough nine-game Big Ten schedule. The Demon Deacons were the first real test, and the step-up in competition revealed a lot about this team.
What’s clear is there’s a lot to clean up on both sides of the ball.
“We were moving the ball plenty,” senior wide receiver Mitchell Paige said. “We had a lot of big plays, just shooting ourselves in the foot. Whatever was happening, just doing things we were coached not to do.”
Five interceptions coupled with crippling penalties by the offense and defense stifled what could have been a momentous win going into Big Ten conference play.
The next three game stretch for IU is absolutely brutal as the Hoosiers play Michigan State, Ohio State and Nebraska the next three weeks. This was the opportunity for IU to have another win in its back pocket on its quest to go to two consecutive bowls.
After last season’s Pinstripe Bowl appearance, this year was about continuing that development as a program.
For now, that growth appears to have stagnated.
IU wants to be an above-average program, and above-average programs don’t lose this game. They don’t turn the ball over five times in a single game. This was an avalanche of mental breakdowns that proved too great to overcome.
If IU wanted to be anything more than a team fighting tooth-and-nail to get bowl-eligible, that likely went out the window today. The next step forward as a program was getting to seven or eight wins — that will be extremely difficult to do with this loss.
But the coaches and players remain positive.
“We had some good practices,” IU Coach Kevin Wilson said. “I didn’t walk out of today like I don’t like our team. We have to play better. We have to play smarter.”
The fatal flaw Saturday was the complete lack of a running game. IU was held under four yards per carry by Wake Forest, forcing the offense to becoming to reliant on junior quarterback Richard Lagow.
“We can’t be a one-dimensional team. We were too one-dimensional,” Wilson said. “Because you are going to get into some third-and-longs if you can’t run the ball more than you would like.”
The errors were plenty, but the season’s not lost.
Senior wide receiver Ricky Jones finally emerged, and sophomore Nick Westbrook continued his stellar play. The defense looked solid once again, but that unsustainable run of takeaways ended.
“This team’s got a shot,” Paige said. “A lot of teams probably around the country, the way that things were rolling along, would have folded and got beat by 40. This team did not do that. We got a shot. We got a lot of good players.”
There are still nine games left to prove the program is moving forward, but right now, IU appears to be running in neutral.
