Column: Just another road game for Hoosiers

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — I spent much of the week leading up to the IU-Illinois contest wondering how it had been three years since the Hoosiers last won a Big Ten road game.

On Saturday afternoon, it took me only 20 seconds to figure it out.

In those 20 seconds, IU was called for an illegal block in the back, forcing the offense to start inside its own 10-yard line.

And in those 20 seconds, senior quarterback Ben Chappell also threw two incomplete passes to two different receivers and then made a what-the-heck-are-you-thinking decision that resulted in an interception and ultimately an Illinois field goal.

It would be one thing if that was the only bad decision the Hoosiers had made. The problem was they continued to repeat the same mistakes again and again.

Chappell would throw two more untimely interceptions, one of which was returned 68 yards for a touchdown.

Then add a Dusty Kiel fumble, another pick-six courtesy of Kiel, a blocked punt that resulting in a safety, and end it with the IU offense giving Illinois a generous 26-point homecoming gift.

“It’s football, and it’s going to happen,” said senior linebacker and defensive captain Tyler Replogle. “It’s going to hurt, and it’s going to hurt until we watch the film and get better. That’s when it’s going to stop hurting.”

This was the second good defense Chappell has played against this season (Ohio State), and it was the second time he looked like a quarterback who didn’t belong on the same field with that defense.

It’s easy to praise him after he throws for almost 400 yards against a team like Arkansas State, but the fact of the matter is Chappell is an average Big Ten quarterback.

Count me as one of the writers who bought into the hype and made him out to be something better than he really is earlier in the year.

Then there were the coaching decisions, which seem to get progressively worse as we go through the season.

The Hoosiers twice moved the ball inside the Illinois 10, and twice they settled for field goals. Could have been good defense, you say?

Consider this: After a facemask penalty on Illinois, IU had its first-and-goal from the Illinois 4. Senior running back Trea Burgess gained two yards on the first play, setting up a situation where, if I were calling the plays, I would have run three QB sneaks in a row.

Instead, IU went out of the pistol again and tried another Burgess run. Why start a running play at the 4-yard line when you could start it at the 2?

“Speechless. You just can’t do that,” Chappell said of the team’s inability to score in the red zone. “It makes me sick to my stomach.”

Every game, it seems, there are a large handful of plays where I’m left shaking my head, thinking to myself, “Why would they run that in this situation?”

To this point, most of those decisions haven’t come back to bite the Hoosiers because they played four cupcakes in the non-conference.

The funny thing is the Hoosiers could have won this football game. They should have, at the very least, been competitive with an opportunity to win in the fourth quarter.

Then again, these are the types of games that this program never wins. Especially on the road.

“If you take out turnovers, we would have been in the game,” redshirt freshman tight end Ted Bolser said. “We have to deal with it. We did turn the ball over, so we have to suffer the consequences.”

Printed neatly on the back of the IU football shirts this year is the word “FINISH” in all caps.

Saturday afternoon in Champaign, the game finished exactly how it started — with an IU quarterback throwing an interception, with the Illinois fans clapping and with Chappell left shaking his head.

Just another Big Ten road game.

E-mail: jmalbers@indiana.edu