Hoosiers defeat Illinois 31-17

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – For IU football this season, the fourth quarter had proven to be a death trap. In its past three games in which they had led at that point, the Hoosiers had found a way to lose each time.

On Saturday, IU broke its curse.

With credit to their fourth quarter performance, the Hoosiers (3-5, 1-3) won their first Big Ten game of the year 31-17 over Illinois (2-6, 0-4) on its homecoming game in Champaign.

“We’ve been doing a lot of things right, but it’s nice to finally get a Saturday scoreboard to go our way,” IU Coach Kevin Wilson said. “We want a lot more of those, but by no means was it boring.”

Leading 24-17 heading into the fourth quarter, IU was put into a familiar place. Out of its seven previous games, the team led going into the fourth quarter on five of those occasions.

In recent games however, the defense would allow late-game touchdowns and the offense would stall, as seen in the Hoosiers’ losses to Navy and Michigan State.

On Saturday afternoon, that was not the case. IU’s defense held the Illini to zero fourth quarter points on 59 total yards, including a game-deciding red zone stand, while the offense was able to produce a late-game touchdown drive.

“We just wanted to play like we knew the game wasn’t over,” junior safety Greg Heban said. “We came out there and played as hard as we could knowing that it wasn’t over yet.”

As the fourth quarter started, Illinois and IU exchanged stalled possessions resulting in punts. On Illinois’ following drive however, the Hoosiers were able to sack quarterback Nathan Scheelhaase twice, holding Illinois to a three-and-out.

When IU got the ball back, the Hoosiers’ second drive was one it had not seen in recent games during the fourth quarter.

A six play, 60-yard possession spanning two minutes and 21 seconds ended in a play action touchdown pass from freshman quarterback Nate Sudfeld to sophomore wide receiver Shane Wynn. The Hoosiers had a 14-point lead with only 5:48 remaining in the game.

“I saw Shane wide open and I just thought ‘put it on him’,” Sudfeld said. “I didn’t want to miss him on that, and he just made it easy. It was great play-calling and great execution.”

With 3:39 left in the game, Illinois got the ball back and began to drive down the field. At one point, the offense got to the IU 4-yard line.

However, following a Ryan Phillis sack of Scheelhaase, the Hoosiers’ seventh of the day, the Illini were backed up to the 15-yard line.

Two incompleted passes later, Illinois was brought to its last chance, a fourth and goal from the IU 15. Scheelhaase’s pass flew incomplete once again, and the Hoosiers forced a turnover on downs.

“We’ve got to play 60 minutes as hard as we can,” Heban said. “If we would have lapsed right there, it would have been a touchdown and maybe a whole different game.”

As IU regained possession with a minute and 33 seconds remaining, the Hoosiers kneeled three times. They were finally able to seal a fourth quarter performance the entire team could be proud of.

Indiana finally was able to celebrate its first Big Ten win since 2010 and the first in the Wilson era.

“We played well down the stretch,” Wilson said. “It felt really good to get a win on the road and get on the right side of the ledger for once.”