GREGG DOYEL

Doyel: Not Indiana football as we know it

Gregg Doyel
gregg.doyel@indystar.com
Hoosiers quarterback Zander Diamont (12) runs by Ohio State Buckeyes defensive lineman Joey Bosa (97) in the fourth quarter.

BLOOMINGTON – This is not Indiana football as we know it, even on the final play when the Hoosiers were nine yards from forcing overtime and the snap sailed past the quarterback. In the old days you’d watch that play and give up. You’d hear carnival music, maybe a laugh track. Because in the old days, Indiana football was hopeless. Indiana was a gag.

Not this Indiana. This Indiana played No. 1 Ohio State on Saturday with one hand tied behind its back, then with the other hand behind its back, and nearly beat the Buckeyes anyway. The final score was 34-27, Ohio State.

This Indiana sent the final snap past backup quarterback Zander Diamont, but instead of carnival music you could hear the silence as the biggest IU crowd in years watched and waited, thinking something special was going to happen.

Something special had been happening all day, starting with the fan base of this basketball school mostly filling up its football stadium on a cold, windy, rainy day against a team favored to beat the Hoosiers by three touchdowns. The crowd of 52,929 came because they understand this is not Indiana football as we know it. This team had won four games to start the season. This team wasn’t losing by three touchdowns.

IU proves how good it can be in loss to No. 1 Ohio State

The crowd was treated to something special for the better part of four emotionally wrenching hours. Indiana scored the first 10 points, lost the lead and its two best players, scored the go-ahead touchdown in the third quarter anyway, fell behind by two scores in the fourth quarter, then got a 79-yard scoring run from its backup quarterback to make this final play possible.

And this final play started like so many plays from Indiana’s past. As a goof. On fourth-and-goal from the 9, Diamont wasn’t ready for the shotgun snap but managed to run down the ball, avoid oncoming Ohio State defenders, get free and launch a pass into the end zone. IU leading receiver Ricky Jones was waiting for it, but Ohio State’s Eli Apple knocked the ball away and time expired and the No. 1 Buckeyes had escaped with a 34-27 victory against an Indiana football team that is nothing like the ones that have come before it.

“We’ve recruited better,” IU coach Kevin Wilson was saying afterward. “We’ve matured. We’re strong.”

And they’re tired of losing. Tired of playing before half-filled home stadiums. Tired of not being taken seriously beyond Bloomington, even within the city limits. After it was over, Zander Diamont was challenging IU fans to come back and rejecting any and all suggestions that this sure was a good effort by the Hoosiers.

“We came here to win, so …” Diamont said, and stopped right there. So, nothing. They came here to win. So shut up with that moral victory nonsense.

Because of the drawing power of Ohio State, this game was televised around the country – meaning America saw an IU team that must be taken seriously. America saw a team lose the country’s leading rusher (Jordan Howard) in the second quarter and the Big Ten’s No. 2 passer (Nate Sudfeld) in the third.

Playing with both hands tied behind its back, Indiana did what quality football programs do and found more hands. Devine Redding carried the ball 30 times into the teeth of the OSU defense, gaining just 45 yards but scoring twice as the Hoosiers controlled the clock for nearly 35 minutes. Diamont, who started the last six games a year ago, came off the bench midway through the third quarter and put up 174 yards of total offense and led IU to 17 points in the final 22 minutes.

The Buckeyes led 34-20 after the third of Ezekiel Elliott’s three touchdown sprints – covering 55, 65 and 75 yards – with 10:24 left. On the next play from scrimmage, Diamont went 79 yards for a touchdown, making it 34-27.

And he wasn’t surprised. I mean, not any.

“I knew I could do it,” he said. “I broke one for 60 yards on them last year.”

It was a 53-yarder last season against the Buckeyes, but the point remains: This Indiana, this quarterback, they expected to do what they did on Saturday. Actually, they expected to do more.

“We didn’t come out here to have a close game,” Diamont said. “We came out here to win.”

IU fans believed. They clamored for weeks on social media for ESPN to bring its College GameDay extravaganza to Bloomington, but ESPN never even discussed the issue with IU officials. That was never going to happen, even with popular ESPN broadcaster Dan Dakich making the loudest noise about it. So what Dakich did was, he held his own Game Day show before the game – and thousands of IU fans stood there in the cold and wind, holding silly signs and peeling off their shirts and screaming in the rain.

Indiana and its fans believed, even if Ohio State perhaps did not. The Buckeyes bring their pep band to their biggest road games. Saturday? No pep band. Almost no cheerleaders, either. Ohio State’s cheering crew could have fit into a minivan for the 3½-hour drive from Columbus.

This game wasn’t on ESPN’s radar, and didn’t seem to be more than a blip on Ohio State’s radar, but can you blame them? Indiana football, as they’ve come to know it, isn’t worth the trip.

But that Indiana football is gone, replaced by something with heart and hope and a whole lot of attitude. At halftime the Hoosiers led 10-6 and Kevin Wilson walked into the IU locker room and said, “You thought you could play. Now you know you can.”

Diamont never thought. He always knew. And when it was over he said, “We can play with anyone in the country.”

And it didn’t sound funny. It didn’t sound funny at all.

Indiana running back Devine Redding (34) runs in for an 11-yard touchdown in the third quarter of the game against Ohio State.

Find Star columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at@GreggDoyelStar or atwww.facebook.com/gregg.doyel