4 seconds answered

our seconds. In the words of immortal actor Al Pacino, four seconds is a lifetime. In a life's length, then, the Hoosiers' questions were unanswered. Did they leave too few seconds on the clock? Would the snap be flawless? Would the hold be firm? Would the kick fit between the uprights? \nIn four seconds unanswered, the IU football team knelt in a straight line, shoulder-to-shoulder, along the sideline ready to embrace questions that the football gods would soon answer. In the four seconds -- three more than what was on the play clock -- the football spun in the air, and everything else that hung in the balance remained unanswered. \nThis is sport. It is the four seconds in which everyone involved, player and patron, cannot exhale in ecstasy or inhale in indignation. Instead, we all lay perfectly motionless. In our personal purgatory we have no other choice than to watch, wait and pray. \nThis is sport -- the game of inches. Had the field goal gone several inches to the left -- I wouldn't be writing this column. Instead (and once more) I would be walking and whistling through the graveyard where another IU football game lay wasted six feet below. \nIn that moment -- in those four seconds unanswered -- IU kicker Austin Starr's kick sliced through the air, saddling the left upright. In that fourth second, men wearing black and white striped shirts signaled with both hands, each pointing that IU led Illinois. \nIn every aspect Saturday, the Hoosiers did it together -- to the "T." It was a total team effort. When the offense ignited, the defense stalled. When the defense came together, the offense fell apart. When either side of the ball tripped over each other, it was special teams that picked them both up. \nMarcus Thigpen returned a kickoff for six points for the third time this season, while Lance Bennett remained allergic to the football, sneezing away every punt return offered to him. Kellen Lewis finished the game with a career-high 20 completions for 240 yards, throwing an amazingly accurate ball. Meanwhile, James Hardy forgot how to catch any ball -- dropping key completions early in the game -- but did redeem himself with five catches for 67 yards. \nNone of that matters now because of one kick. One kick that dissolved a 17-game road conference losing streak dating back to 2001. One kick that dismissed seven consecutive Big Ten losses since Oct. 15, 2005 against Iowa. One kick that disarmed a current three game-losing streak for the Hoosiers.\nIt was one kick that wiped clean IU's slate of stagnation. \nHey, IU -- have you heard? The Hoosiers won Saturday. On the legs of Marcus Thigpen, the arm of Kellen Lewis, the head of Terry Hoeppner and the foot of Austin Starr. \nThis is sport. It requires a team effort that might last nine innings, three periods, two halves or four quarters. It wasn't four quarters that mattered most; rather it was four seconds. In four seconds unanswered, the IU football team knelt in a straight line, shoulder-to-shoulder along the sideline, awaiting their collective football fate. \nThat was when Starr, in the lazy Saturday sun, sliced the football through the sky to capture IU's third win of the season. \nThough a football game might last four quarters and a football season might last 12 games, a lifetime lasts four seconds. In a life's length, in four seconds, the Hoosiers' questions were finally answered.