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Thursday, March 28
The Indiana Daily Student

sports football

IU football overcomes slow start to beat Ball State, 34-24

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IU football separated itself from Ball State University late in Saturday’s season-opener at Lucas Oil Stadium. Aside from two ties, the Hoosiers stayed in front of the Cardinals throughout the game before closing it out, 34-24. 

Freshman Michael Penix Jr. had a few costly blunders in the first half but played a calm game at quarterback despite it being his first collegiate start.

“You turn that offense over to him, you’ve got to trust him,” IU head coach Tom Allen said. “Thought he had a lot of poise. I just want him to keep growing and learning. You’re going to have some growing pains, I mean he’s never been a starter before in college.”

The Hoosiers and Cardinals traded field goals early on, and then Penix unleashed a deep ball. Senior receiver Nick Westbrook was all alone and walked into the end zone for a 75-yard score in response to Ball State’s game-tying field goal. 

Before the first half came to an end, however, Penix was picked off by Ball State twice. At the end of the first quarter, the freshman threw to the far sideline and gave the Cardinals enough time to slide over and snatch the pick. Minutes later, Penix threw the ball behind his intended receiver and into the hands of a Cardinal defender. 

Clinging to a 16-10 lead at halftime, IU needed more assurance out of its offense for the rest of the game. Penix had a shaky start under center, and IU’s run game couldn’t get too much going, but the Hoosier offense started to take form in the second half.

Sophomore running back Stevie Scott III found holes to run through at the line of scrimmage in the second half. Scott scored on two short touchdowns and finished the afternoon with 76 total yards. 

Penix learned from his interceptions and threw more accurate balls. He ended the game 24-of-40 passing for 326 yards, one touchdown and those two interceptions but was able to pick up 67 yards with his legs, good for the team lead in rushing yards. 

Saturday’s unsung hero was senior kicker Logan Justus, who went a perfect 4-of-4 on field goal attempts. Hitting from 48, 49 and 50 yards out, Justus broke his career-long record three times throughout the game. The senior’s four field goals tied a single-game program record. 

“He was awesome today,” Allen said of Justus. “Some guys just have the innate ability to come through when it counts, when the pressure is on, and some guys have the opposite of that.”

As Ball State went driving down two possessions late, IU sophomore defensive back Jaylin Williams elevated for an interception to seal the game. The late pick by the Hoosiers extended their string of games with a forced turnover to 19 consecutive, the best active streak in the nation. 

Similar to IU’s offense, the defense also came around in the second half. The Hoosiers limited the Cardinals to just 100 yards on the ground and 298 yards through the air. Ball State had one scoring drive each quarter. 

Allen’s only real complaints of the team were dropped balls and missed tackles, but Allen isn’t going to lose much sleep over those miscues. 

“We’ve caught the ball really well in practice, so that surprised me and our tackling surprised me too, we’ve been good tacklers in our scrimmages,” Allen said. “That just sticks out to me, but we’ll get that fixed, that’s not going to be hard. We got some key stops, got that huge takeaway there at the end which was big.”

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