Pinstripe Bowl: IU falls to Duke in heartbreaking fashion
NEW YORK – Coach Kevin Wilson wanted two things from his football team in the final moments of Indiana’s 2015 season.
First, he wanted to see his players’ heads high, for them to feel more pride than disappointment. Second, he wanted them to understand that their 44-41 overtime loss to Duke didn’t come down to a missed field goal, any more than it did a fumbled punt, a dropped touchdown pass, a scoreless first quarter and a slew of mistakes and missed opportunities that cost Indiana the Pinstripe Bowl long before Griffin Oakes’ toe met leather on the game's final play.
“We had enough errors. We were on the wrong side. That was the message to the team in a very strong way,” Wilson said. “Came down to a kick that our guys want to say was close, but I told them it wasn’t. If it was good, it was good. It wasn’t.”
Reaction: IU loses Pinstripe bowl on controversial FG call
That miss to the right on a 38-yard try that would have tied the score at the end of the first overtime controversially capped IU’s first bowl appearance in eight years, and its first in Wilson’s five years as coach.
The officials’ explanation, released after the game, said that “the ruling was that the ball was outside of the upright and in order for a field goal to be good, the ball has to be completely inside the upright.” The play was not reviewable.
• BOX SCORE: Duke 44, Indiana 41
And it wasn’t what Wilson wanted to hang onto postgame. He rightfully had eyes on the bigger picture.
He wanted lingering memories of IU’s bowl game and season to ring with optimism, for what Indiana (6-7) might accomplish if it learns to seize those missed opportunities in the future.
Indiana authored most of its own undoing, in ways both familiar and new.
The Big Ten’s worst defense did its part, allowing pass-happy Duke to run for 373 yards, including touchdown runs of 85 and 73 yards. Even with Blue Devils quarterback Thomas Sirk struggling (he completed just 17-of-37 passes and threw two interceptions), Indiana could not find its footing on defense.
And the conference’s best offense, the one good enough to outrun those defensive deficiencies and bring Indiana to this game, was unusually sloppy.
The Hoosiers were held scoreless in the first quarter for just the second time all season. Senior quarterback Nate Sudfeld started slowly and threw two interceptions. Simmie Cobbs, who eclipsed 1,000 yards receiving with his 121-yard performance Saturday, dropped an easy touchdown pass that might have won the game. Wilson counted five missed scoring opportunities.
More simply, whether the field goal was missed or the call was, the Hoosiers made their own bad luck.
“We had too many errors,” he said.
Despite all those miscues, the Hoosiers still had chances to win their first bowl game since 1991.
Devine Redding was again superb in Jordan Howard’s absence, rushing for a career-high 227 yards. He broke 1,000 yards rushing for the season, giving Indiana two 1,000-yard backs in the same season for the first time.
Redding helps IU reach new heights in bowl loss
Despite critical drops, Cobbs made a handful of superb plays downfield. Sudfeld passed for 389 yards and three scores. IU forced as many turnovers as it committed.
“It was weird,” Sudfeld said. “I felt like we were a play or two from really breaking away, knocking on the door of putting a lot of points on them in a quick amount of time. We just weren’t able to hit that door down. We kept letting them stay in it and they did a good job.”
In that way, Saturday’s loss came to embody Indiana’s 2015 season at large.
The Hoosiers went toe to toe with every team they played. Five of their seven losses came by eight points or fewer.
But the same flimsy defense that allowed a critical late touchdown drive against Michigan did the same against Duke. The same team that could not close out Rutgers did not put away the Blue Devils.
If anything, this season should be remembered as one in which Indiana proved its potential, but realizing that potential was always just out of reach.
Wilson was right not to talk about moral victories Saturday, not to pin the loss on a referee’s decision or be anything but upbeat about his program’s direction.
The Pinstripe Bowl, like this entire season, showed how close Indiana is to breaking its own glass ceiling, and yet also that it is largely the Hoosiers themselves still holding back progress.
“To me, it shows the growth, but it also shows, at the end, it’s about the ultimate result, which is the 'W,' ” Wilson said. “The real stat is wins, and we’ve only got six. We’ve made some strides. We want to build on it. We’ve got a really, I think, solid foundation to move forward, but we’ve gotta keep moving forward.”
Follow Star reporter Zach Osterman on Twitter: @ZachOsterman.