While Indiana football embarked on its historic 2025 Big Ten title run, running back Lee Beebe Jr. sat at home.
The Hoosiers’ final nonconference game against Indiana State was a dominant 73-0 victory. But the Cream and Crimson lost Beebe for the season with a non-contact knee injury in the third quarter.
Beebe spent the next two weeks in 2025 at home to “just let it heal,” he said following the Hoosiers’ 29-23 victory over Northwestern on Friday at Memorial Stadium. While Beebe was away, his teammates trounced Illinois and survived a close road victory over Iowa to begin Big Ten play.
“But once that third week and on came, I was hard in the training room, hard in the weight room, just doing whatever I could just to get back,” Beebe said postgame Friday.
Beebe, who spent three seasons at the University of Alabama at Birmingham before transferring to Indiana, accumulated 209 yards on the ground before his injury last season.
He made it a point of emphasis to return stronger.
“As soon as I got injured, I just knew that I needed to work as hard as possible to get back to where I was or even better,” Beebe said.
The now-redshirt senior was an integral part of the Hoosiers’ run game through their nonconference slate, handling at least 14 carries in each of Indiana’s first three contests.
However, Beebe was inefficient with his usage compared to his backfield counterpart and junior running back Turbo Richard. Beebe averaged just 4.1 yards per carry through three games, while Richard overshadowed him with over seven yards per carry.
But with Richard leaving Friday’s game against Northwestern in the second quarter, Beebe was thrust into a commanding role.
“Coach Mill (John Miller) just came up to me and he was just like, ‘Be prepared,’” Beebe said.
He was.
Beebe gashed Northwestern’s defense for 203 rushing yards and a touchdown, continuously ripping off chunk gains as the Wildcats struggled to tackle him.
Northwestern threatened Indiana’s 19-game win streak. Senior quarterback Aidan Chiles rushed for a touchdown to bring the Wildcats within two points with just over five minutes remaining.
But Beebe ended any conversations about a potential upset in Bloomington. On the first play of the Hoosiers’ next drive, the running back found a gap and scampered 70 yards to set his team up for a game-clinching touchdown. Six plays later, with the Wildcats keyed in on Beebe, redshirt senior quarterback Josh Hoover faked a handoff and rolled to his left, running untouched into the endzone.
“Boy we really needed him and he carried the load,” Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti said about Beebe postgame.
Earlier in the fourth quarter, Chiles completed a touchdown pass to cut the Northwestern deficit to just two.
Then, Beebe ignited the Indiana offense. He found a gap and raced for a 39-yard gain down to the Northwestern 9-yard line. Two plays later, Beebe earned an inside handoff, then bounced it outside and shook off a defender for a 4-yard touchdown.
Indiana’s national championship roster a season ago featured a backfield duo of Roman Hemby and Kaelon Black. While Hemby led with 1,120 rushing yards, Cignetti relied on Black to wear down defenses in short-yardage and goal line situations.
Black is now the San Francisco 49ers No. 2 running back. He finished first on last year’s Indiana team with 10 rushing touchdowns and surpassed 1,000 ground yards to help anchor one of the top rushing units in the nation.
“He’s got as much heart as anybody in this program the last three years,” Cignetti said about Beebe. “I would compare his heart to Kaelon Black’s heart.”
While Beebe wasn’t on the field for most of the Hoosiers’ title run, he admired Black’s running style.
“Just KB’s (Kaelon Black’s) physicality,” Beebe said. “He was physical. He knew how to hit the hole hard and fast and he knew how to reach his blocks well.”
With redshirt sophomore running back Khobie Martin likely out until midseason and Richard exiting Friday with a lower body injury, Beebe will headline the Hoosiers’ backfield moving forward.
Beebe, who spent the beginning of last season’s Big Ten slate away from the team, showed he can handle the increased responsibility during the Hoosiers’ conference opener Friday. Still, opportunities to improve in a tough conference are always there.
“I just feel like we could just build on it — just build on what we did tonight,” Beebe said. “And we can learn from our mistakes — learn from our good plays because every play needs improvement.”
Follow reporters Conor Banks (@Conorbanks06 and conbanks@iu.edu) and Nathan Shriberg (@NShriberg and naashri@iu.edu) and columnist Elakai Anela (@elakai_anela and eanela@iu.edu) for updates throughout the Indiana football season.
