Immature penalties. Dropped passes. Coverage errors.
Saturday’s 45-23 IU loss to Rutgers felt a little different than the past few weeks.
In losses to Michigan State, Michigan and Penn State, IU was simply unable to move the ball or make defensive stops.
There were plenty of mistakes, but for the most part, they were flat-out beat.
This week, it was the constant errors that dug IU’s grave and made it official that the Hoosiers will not be bowling this season.
It was a strange game, to say the least.
After an ugly, low-scoring first half that made it appear as if the defense would keep IU in the game, the second half was constant chaos.
IU allowed consecutive 47- and 34-yard touchdowns where everyone just looked lost. These were right after gaining a 16-10 lead.
Then, freshman quarterback Zander Diamont threw an ugly interception. Then, junior punter Erich Toth fumbled a fake punt attempt.
Diamont had some convincing moments. He threw his first touchdown pass and had a career-high 179 yards.
He also bobbled balls and made some poor decisions.
It was a constant back and forth with the freshman Saturday. He grew exponentially as a downfield passer but was far less safe with the ball than in past games.
One of the more glaring mistakes of the day for IU was a coverage mishap that left junior linebacker Zack Shaw in one-on-one coverage with Rutgers’ best receiver, Leonte Carroo.
What ensued was a walk in the park 56-yard ?touchdown pass.
These mistakes are not examples of being outplayed. They are mental errors that take a team out of a football game.
Some of the dropped passes by receivers were unacceptable. Last week, the drops seemed like isolated incidents. Now, it’s becoming habitual.
When a receiver goes to play college football, it’s assumed he can catch the ball. Then, he can work on things such as route-running and physical development to become a better player.
When a team has a young quarterback in there who is finally making good throws in tough spots, you cannot let him down by dropping the ball the way some receivers did Saturday.
To cap off the errors, IU had a roughing-the-kicker penalty in the final minutes to give the ball back to ?Rutgers.
I know it looked like he may have been blocked into the punter, so it was probably a bad call, but it’s still bad when you put it on top of all these other errors.
There were moments in this game in which it seemed IU was going to win and that it had made the jump to be able to play great football without junior quarterback Nate Sudfeld.
There were other moments in which the Hoosiers looked as irresponsible and lost as ever.
That might be the biggest problem with IU during the past four years: the inconsistency throughout a game.
In the past few weeks, the whole narrative was IU couldn’t win because it had no passing game and therefore had no run game.
The run and the pass were pretty effective Saturday, but mistakes gave the game away.
The Hoosiers have at least kept games competitive the past few weeks against mediocre Big Ten teams, but next week the weaknesses will be much more evident against No. 7 Ohio State.
The notion of there soon not being football to watch makes me sad.
What makes me even more sad is watching irresponsible football.
brodmill@indiana.edu
