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Thursday, March 28
The Indiana Daily Student

sports football

IU players look to learn from mistakes made against Wake Forest

Senior Mitchell Paige dodges a Wake Forest defender while attemping to score.

Rashard Fant said he doesn’t take any moral victories away from IU’s loss Saturday against Wake Forest, but knowing the majority of the mistakes the Hoosiers made were self-inflicted or correctable is a silver lining.

If IU can make the plays it’s supposed to, Fant said it can compete in a Big Ten Conference where a team could go 9-3 just as easily 
as 3-9.

The defense’s responsibility to leave with takeaways, in particular, is at the front of the junior cornerback’s mind.

“People will focus on, oh, the five interceptions,” Fant said. “But at the end of the day, if we get one or two takeaways, we lost by five, we get one or two that’s just another scoring opportunity for our offense, and we win the game no matter how many takeaways Wake Forest created.”

The Demon Deacons finished with a 5-0 advantage in takeaways in their 33-28 win against the Hoosiers. IU committed costly penalties, couldn’t get the run game going and became one-dimensional on offense.

Mistakes built up, and Wake Forest wasn’t going to let IU Coach Kevin Wilson’s squad off the hook.

“Coach Wilson says it a lot. It just takes a little bit to be off, and that’s what was happening,” senior wide receiver Mitchell Paige said. “They, Wake Forest, did a good job capitalizing on it, obviously, when we were a little bit off.”

Paige said IU needs to be wary heading into a matchup with No. 17 Michigan State this week, watch more film and communicate better, as the Spartans will do the same thing as the Demon Deacons if the Hoosiers falter.

Junior tight end Danny Friend said he finds comfort in the view that the majority of IU’s mistakes as correctable or self-inflicted. The atmosphere in the locker room is still brimming with confidence and positivity.

“We’re not going to let this one loss deter us from our goals,” Friend said.

Work remains if IU is to achieve those goals: win the Big Ten championship and reach the College Football Playoff.

The Big Ten road isn’t an easy one, and IU’s pass rush has to find a way to get to opposing quarterbacks, just as the offense needs to put four full quarters together.

Paige said IU is leaving points on the field, and that doesn’t just address the recent blocked field goal.

“We are not clicking the way that I would hope to be by now,” Paige said. “There’s still some things that we’re doing where we’re kind of unsure. We’re not really letting it rip and going after people like we’re used to at this school.”

IU will look to put together a complete team game when it welcomes Michigan State to town Oct. 1. Michigan State comes in off a tough 30-6 loss to No. 8 Wisconsin at home to give IU its first taste of conference 
competition.

Sophomore safety Jonathan Crawford said he is confident IU will rebound.

“We know last week we could have played better,” Crawford said. “Credit to Wake Forest, but we didn’t play how we wanted to. This week coming up we’re going to prove that, that we can play.”

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