Offense continues to stall Saturday

One offensive touchdown in 120 minutes, two losses.\nIn Saturday's Big Ten opener against Wisconsin, the IU football team struggled to score again, waiting until late in the fourth quarter to score its first offensive touchdown in two weeks.\n"I'm in shock," dejected IU coach Terry Hoeppner said following the game. "After the week of practice we had, I didn't see this coming at all ... They outcoached us and outplayed us in every aspect of the game."\nIU's offense was unable to get into the end zone until only 3:25 remained in the game, when the game was already well out of reach and nearly all of the game's 32,142 attendees were already on their way home. \nLate in the fourth quarter, junior fullback Josiah Sears powered his way in for the score on an 8-yard run.\nSears' touchdown run was the first offensive touchdown for the Hoosiers since Sept. 16, when freshman running back Demetrius McCray scored on a 12-yard run against Southern Illinois University.\nThe Hoosiers started off Saturday's game with an encouraging first drive, with sophomore running back Marcus Thigpen taking advantage of IU's early commitment to the ground game. But three penalties and 30 yards later, the Hoosiers handed the ball over to Wisconsin.\nThe Badgers took advantage of IU's miscues, scoring touchdowns on five consecutive possessions.\nWhile Wisconsin continued to visit the end zone, IU stalled on offense, tallying just six first downs. The Badgers took a 35-0 lead into the half.\nFreshman starting quarterback Kellen Lewis failed to get into a rhythm in the first half, completing five of 12 pass attempts for only 41 yards. He finished the game 13-for-29, passing for 113 yards.\n"I got the nod today, and I have to do a better job to make the best of it," Lewis said. "I can't give myself a grade from one to 10, but I didn't do enough because we only put 10 (offensive) points on the board. So we have to get better offensively."\nSo for the second straight week, the Hoosiers couldn't muster much of an offense. Wisconsin, on the other hand, scored seven offensive touchdowns. \n"I know we're a work in progress, but this was unacceptable today. Period," Hoeppner said following the game.\nSenior defensive back Troy Grosfield did run back a Wisconsin fumble 15 yards for the score while sophomore kicker Austin Starr connected on his fourth field goal of the season to give the Hoosiers their first 10 points of the game.\nLast week in soggy conditions versus Connecticut, the Hoosiers scored just once, a special teams score on an 87-yard kickoff return from Thigpen. With a revolving door at the quarterback position, IU managed just 192 yards against the Huskies.\nSears said the backbreaker for IU this week was its own mistakes more than anything Wisconsin threw at it.\n"Like a lot of the weeks we've been playing, it's more so the mistakes we're making as opposed to what (Wisconsin) was doing to stop us," Sears said. "And they did do a great job of stopping us, but I think a lot of it had to do with the mental errors we made"