We were warned that this would happen.
In IU Coach Kevin Wilson’s weekly press conference last week, he discussed how IU doesn’t handle success well.
This ominous statement had been made multiple times this season and was corroborated in the loss to Penn State. IU was unable to win its third consecutive game of the season and failed to handle success within the game when the Hoosiers went up 10 points in the third quarter.
The warning rang true.
Success just doesn’t come easy to this IU program. Last season’s Pinstripe Bowl appearance was supposed to beginning of a new era. Instead, the Hoosiers are left waiting until the last two games of the season to become bowl eligible. That’s not exactly the progress the game in New York City promised.
Zoom out and this program has not moved forward from last year. While the defense has been salvaged under defensive coordinator Tom Allen, problems have emerged on offense and special teams and have subverted the progress made by the defense.
The failure to notch a breakthrough win has persisted. As FOX Sports national college football reporter Stewart Mandel tweeted Saturday, “No team in the country has had more ‘almost’ upsets over the last 4 years or so than Indiana.” The Hoosiers do not want to be an “almost” program.
This is exactly where the Hoosiers are. IU has had multiple opportunities to change this perception this season but due to a lack of decisiveness has failed to do so.
The here-we-go-again mentality that has infected the fan base has seeped into the team. That’s not readily apparent, but Wilson admits they don’t handle success well and when games are there to be won, no one steps up.
This isn’t because of a lack of talent. IU is consistently in every game and isn’t ever thoroughly outplayed and blown out. The Hoosiers have had extremely talented players — such as Cody Latimer, Nate Sudfeld, Tevin Coleman, Darius Latham, Jason Spriggs and Jordan Howard — come through the program the past few years, but just how many great Big Ten wins did that group of players get? Not enough.
The whole hasn’t been greater the sum of the parts.
The Hoosiers just lack a player who makes decisive, game-winning plays when the game is truly on the line. Someone on either side of the ball could have stepped up in the fourth quarter against Penn State and won the game.
No one did.
Senior wide receiver Mitchell Paige took credit for the loss after the game. He cited his two fumbles as the biggest factor in the loss. However, that all could have easily been forgotten if in the fourth quarter someone had made a game-winning catch or another important catch on a game-winning drive.
The Hoosiers have had the talent and the coaching to be an eight-win team the past two years, but this program cannot stay out of its own way. Something has to change. Someone has to step up in these fourth quarters.
A program built on moral victories isn’t going to sustain itself.
