If Doughty had a good game, the Hilltoppers would defeat the Hoosiers.
Doughty threw for 484 yards, completing 35 of 46 passes, with three touchdowns.
But the Hoosiers were not defeated — they beat the Hilltoppers, 38-35, to remain undefeated.
“I’d like to tell you something magical, or that we’re doing something fancy in practice, but we’re not,” IU Coach Kevin Wilson said. “We’re a strong team. I think, mentally, we’re getting stronger.”
Heading into halftime, IU had given up two passing touchdowns and trailed 28-17.
Eleven of Doughty’s passes had gone for 15 yards or more and he had become WKU’s all-time passing leader (8,566 yards) in the first half.
“You can skew those numbers and look at it statistically all you want,” Wilson said. “I think the defense has a lot of improvement they can do, but I don’t dislike the way that defense played.”
The Hoosiers improved on two points of emphasis made by Wilson: penalties and third down efficiency.
Versus Florida International in week two, the Hoosiers committed 11 penalties, but against WKU, the Hoosiers only committed five penalties for 50 yards.
On third down against FIU, the Hoosiers converted only seven of 18 third downs, while allowing the Panthers to convert seven of 19. Against WKU, IU converted eight of 12 third downs and allowed the Hilltoppers to convert just five of 11.
In addition to improving third down efficiency and reducing penalties, the Hoosiers continued their trend of stopping the rush.
With junior defensive lineman Ralph Green and Darius Latham back from suspension last week against FIU, IU allowed just 123 rushing yards. Saturday, in the return of sophomore linebacker Tegray Scales, the Hoosiers allowed 84 rushing yards.
“They threw the ball 46 times and ran it 26 times. We got them one-dimensional,” Wilson said. “When you get someone one-dimensional, you’ve got a chance. We gave up some big plays with the young DBs, but those young DBs made plays.”
One young defensive back that made plays was freshman safety Jonathan Crawford, who intercepted Doughty twice in WKU’s first two drives on the second half, one at the IU three yard line and the other at the WKU 22 yard line.
IU drove 97 yards after Crawford’s first interception to score a touchdown, the second-longest drive of the season behind IU’s first half drive of 99 yards after a goalline stand. The Hoosiers scored touchdowns after each interception.
“Jonathan Crawford, man, he’s a monster,” junior receiver Ricky Jones said. “He’s been thrown into that role with all the things that have been going on, and for him to be thrown into that role as a freshman and do so well, I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Creating turnovers is something that sophomore free safety Chase Dutra, said is important to the Hoosier defense.
IU is now plus-five in turnover margin, winning the turnover battle in each of its first three games, and winning the battle Saturday, 2-1.
The Hoosiers have scored 41 of their 122 points off turnovers this season.
“We’re extra confident,” Jones said about the offense after forced turnovers. “We really feed off the defense, something that we haven’t done in past years. When we force a turnover, we know we’re going to go down the field and score.”
Even though IU allowed nearly 500 yards passing, and the inexperienced defense was exposed for the third straight week, it defeated a WKU team that received two AP Top-25 votes.
Claiming its third consecutive victory to start the season, IU begins the season 3-0 for the first time since 2010 and just the 16th time in program history.
“It feels good,” senior quarterback Nate Sudfeld said. “No matter you do it, we have three wins and zero losses. Now we’re going into the practice room saying, ‘Good win. Now it’s 0-0.’ We’ll see how far we want to go.”
