IU Comeback Comes Up Short

Friday, October 26

Minneapolis, Minn.

8 PM

Indiana University

4-5 , 1-5

Minnesota

4-4 , 1-4

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

Indiana

Minnesota

10/27/2018 1:55:00 AM | Football

Box Score Box Score (PDF)Postgame Notes WATCH | Tom Allen WATCH | DB Raheem Layne WATCH | QB Peyton Ramsey

By Andy Graham
IUHoosiers.com

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. – Tom Allen is on record, repeatedly, against the whole notion of playing college football on Friday nights.

The Indiana coach probably likes it even less after this particular Friday.

Minnesota withstood a furious IU comeback to prevail, 38-31.

IU scored 22 unanswered points in the fourth quarter to forge a 31-31 tie, then got the ball back at its own 24 with 3:24 left.

The offense couldn't convert a 3^rd-and-1 when it had the opportunity to go win the game. The defense then gave up a decisive 67-yard pass from
Tanner Morgan to Rashod Bateman with 1:34 to play.

"Really heart-wrenching," Allen said, a week after what he termed a "gut-wrenching" 33-28 home loss to No. 18 Penn State. "So proud of our kids for fighting back – never quit, kept battling, got the score tied, then weren't able to finish. So just, really, this one hurts.

"Defensively, really disappointed. Missed some key tackles. Lost leverage on some guys we never should have. Just fundamental things. Special teams did a lot of great things, then got the punt blocked, which cost us. Offensively, not protecting the football, not scoring touchdowns in that red zone."

Beyond the lack of finish, there was also the failure to launch.

IU didn't score its first TD till 13:24 left in the game, on a perfect 43-yard pass from Peyton Ramsey to Donavan Hale. Till that juncture, Indiana had turned dug a 31-9 hole.

Lack of touchdowns in the red zone characterized IU's first half, from the first couple of Hoosier series onward. Both were 13-play possessions.
Both could only produce Logan Justus field goals, despite some excellent runs from both Ramsey and Stevie Scott.

Redshirt freshman Tanner Morgan, making his first-ever college start, meantime had a strong evening. He hit his first six passes, then stayed hot for the whole half.

Minnesota's first series ended with a 1-yard TD run by Seth Green out of the Wildcat and the Gophers carried a 7-6 lead into the second quarter.

Justus made his third field goal to give Indiana a 9-7 lead with 14:05 left in the half, but Minnesota responded with two TD drives – including a 99-yarder.

Slant patterns killed the Hoosier defenders.

"We lost inside leverage, trying to play man against it," Allen said of the slant. "Then a couple of times, we were playing zone, right in those windows, but they ran inside of us and we missed them … that concept hurt us, for sure.

"Those one-on-ones for inside leverage, you've got to win those. Some of our better players didn't play very well tonight."

Tyler Johnson got inside to put Minnesota up 14-9 at 6:19 of the second.

Then after a great Haydon Whitehead punt put the Gophers all the way back to their own 1 to start their next drive, they proved undaunted.

Johnson ran down a 51-yard completion to get Minnesota out from under its own goalposts.

A missed tackle on yet another slant to Johnson for a 17-yard scoring play sent the home team into intermission up 21-9.

Morgan was 12-of-14 passing for 203 yards and the two TDs by that time.

Minnesota's lead got even more comfortable in the third quarter.

Emmit Carpenter hit a 37-yard field goal to cap the half's opening drive, which consumed 7:04 off the clock.

After the Gophers subsequently blocked a Whitehead punt to take over at the IU 28, Shannon Brooks added an easy 17-yard TD run right up the gut at the 5:33 mark of the period. The Hoosier deficit was 22 and they looked lifeless.

But they sure came alive in the fourth.

The Ramsey bomb to Hale ignited the rally. Then things got wild and wooly.

Bryant Fitzgerald came up with his second forced fumble of the season and Juwan Burgess pounced on it to give Indiana the ball back at its own 37 with 11:53 left.

This time the ensuing IU scoring drive ended with Ramsey finding Ty Fryfogle on a post pattern for a 37-yard score with 10:04 left. Fryfogle caught the 2-point conversion, too, that made it 31-23 – suddenly a one-score game.

The teams then exchanged interceptions (on a leap by IU's Fitzgerald and a dive by Minnesota's Jacob Huff) before the IU defense posted another stop, giving the Hoosiers the ball back on their own 44 with 7:06 left.

Ramsey came up with a huge 29-yard scramble on 4^th-and-9 to the Gopher 3 and Scott scored from there on the next snap. Indiana then gave
Minnesota a little of its own slant medicine as Ramsey hit Hale to tie the game at 31-31 with 4:02 left.

Another defensive stop for IU gave the Hoosiers the ball back on their own 24 with 3:24 left. A pair of Scott runs produced a 3^rd-and-1, but Minnesota's Blake Cashman came unblocked between left tackle and guard to stuff Scott for a loss. So the Hoosiers were forced to punt.

Allen was pleased with IU's offensive line play "till the last two drives. That's what frustrated me. They did a great job the entire game, then just needed one more yard there to keep that drive going, to go have a chance to go kick a field goal and win the game."

Instead, Minnesota then used a play-fake and Bateman went hauled in the winning score.

"He made a great move on the guy," Morgan said of Bateman. "We had great protection. He just made a great catch and did the rest."

Minnesota coach P.J. Fleck had confidence in the call. "We ran play-action all night," he said. "We knew they'd bite on that."

A strip-sack fumble caused by Carter Coughlin, the Big Ten sack leader, then ended any Hoosier hopes with 1:26 left.

Minnesota (4-4 overall, 1-4 Big Ten) finished with a 482-385 advantage in total yards, and just enough of an edge on the scoreboard. Morgan finished with 302 yards passing.

"It's a great, an elite win for us," Morgan said. We've just got to continue to know that we've got to finish, no matter what. Finish. Finish. Finish."

Fleck lauded Indiana's rally, and his own team. "Credit Tom Allen and Indiana," Fleck said. What a game to be a part of.

"We're talking one-game seasons. We wanted to be 1-0 against Indiana. And we are. Now we can move on to Illinois. But I'm really proud of this team. They grew up a lot tonight.

"When you can win a game like this, and you can finish it with that young guy out there, that sets a tone for years and years down the road."

Indiana (4-5, 1-5) heads into a bye week before it returns to Memorial Stadium against Maryland on Nov. 10.