The Day After: Predictions Revisited From Indiana’s 56-7 win over Nebraska

How did we do on our Indiana prognostications for the Nebraska game?

Indiana's Ty Son Lawton (17) leaps as he runs during the Indiana versus Nebraska football game at Memorial Stadium on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. / Rich Janzaruk/Herald-Times / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Forgive me if I put on my old-man-yelling-at-cloud hat, but it does seem to me that talking heads in the sports world are constantly trying to top one another in the This Was The Greatest sweepstakes.

This Was The Greatest Game Ever. This Is The Greatest Team Ever. This Is The Greatest Season Ever.

These types of things are declared and debated so often that they’ve lost any meaning. These declarations are also made with very minimal to no historical knowledge or depth by the “expert” making them – to embrace debate often means pushing away pesky matters like historical data, after all.

I was a history major in college. I bristle at the inch-deep, mile-wide vapidity of it all.

So understand that’s where my head is. Which means I really mean it when I ask whether Saturday’s 56-7 win over Nebraska was one of the greatest days in Indiana history?

I didn’t say the greatest because there’s other candidates. But not many.

I also say it knowing that this near-unprecedented margin of victory almost certainly puts this game on the Mount Rushmore of greatest Indiana football moments. That might still be true even if a couple of those presidents slipped off the mountain.

The only two games that might be greater in Indiana’s history that jump to my mind and that had similar impact are the 1967 Big Ten-winning, Rose-Bowl clinching season finale victory over Purdue and the dramatic Holiday Bowl win over BYU in 1979.

I’d split the atom on those two. The Holiday Bowl win is part of Indiana lore. It was much harder to make it to a bowl game at the time as there were far fewer of them. Great as that 38-37 victory was for the Hoosiers, it was the exclamation point at the end of a sentence that signified a nice 8-4 season. Good by Indiana standards, but not historic in the same way as an unbeaten season.

Right now, the 1967 clincher is a bigger win because it put Indiana on the path to an accomplishment it hadn’t done before and hasn’t done since – a Rose Bowl berth. Back when it was really hard to make a bowl game. The Big Ten only allowed one team to go bowling at the time.

However, I think Saturday’s game is the next-greatest day in Indiana’s history. The stakes and the history back me up.

The margin of victory was tied for the largest in Indiana’s Big Ten history. The last time Indiana won by 49 against a Big Ten foe was against Minnesota in 1945. If you remember that one, God bless you.

Indiana did it in front of a crowd of 53,082 – the fourth-largest in Indiana history. As the years pass, the amount of Hoosiers fans who claimed they were there will swell. The point is that the home folks got to witness and revel in one of the biggest wins in school history. It’s always better to do big things at home.

Finally, this victory puts Indiana on a path toward goals no one considered back in August. The College Football Playoff is becoming a very realistic possibility, and so is a berth in the Big Ten championship game. Indiana will likely be favored in their next three games – Washington next Saturday, at Michigan State on Nov. 2 and Michigan at home on Nov. 9 – which would mean an undefeated Hoosiers team could go to Ohio State on Nov. 16.

Can you imagine? Start imagining.

The win put the Hoosiers in a position to accomplish goals it has never come close to before. There’s still work to be done, but the work put in so far suggests it can be done. I’d say that’s pretty great. I’d say a 49-point destruction of Nebraska ranks right up with the greatest games in Indiana’s history.

Here’s how we did on the three keys and prediction for the Nebraska game:

1. Set A Defensive Tone

Indiana's Shawn Asbury II (1) celebrates his interception the Indiana versus Nebraska football game at Memorial Stadium on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. / Rich Janzaruk/Herald-Times / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

With the exception of one series – Nebraska’s lone scoring drive where it somehow went 14 plays without a single third-down play – Indiana’s defense was brilliant. Indiana forced turnovers – five in all – and they were all impactful.

Three of the Cornhuskers’ giveaways came on fourth down. One could say it’s the same as a punt, but one would be wrong as the Huskers could have put points on the board in each case with a field goal (one was admittedly late in the game and wouldn’t have resulted in an attempted field goal) – and the Indiana defense stood tall.

Nebraska freshman quarterback Dylan Raiola has many of the markings of being a good quarterback. He looks the part of a classic quarterback with his 6-foot-3 build and willingness to stand in the pocket. However, Raiola can’t run, and Indiana’s pressure off the edges turned an asset into a weakness as he couldn’t make plays easily outside the pocket.

Indiana mixed in some new contributors, too. Terry Jones Jr. had a breakout game with 6 tackles and a sack. Defensive back Bryson Bonds started and had 4 tackles. Rolijah Hardy also started and later had an interception.

Indiana’s usual standouts did their thing. Aiden Fisher had 11 tackles. Jailin Walker and Mikail Kamara both forced fumbles.

I’d say the Indiana defense set the tone very well.

2. Win The Battle Of Good First Half Teams

Indiana Hoosiers Myles Price (4) celebrates a touchdown during the second quarter of a game against the Nebraska Cornhuskers at Memorial Stadium. / Jacob Musselman-Imagn Images

Indiana has been outstanding in the first half of games all season. Entering the game, Indiana outscored its opponents 73-0 in the first quarter. However, Nebraska was similarly dominant in the second quarter as it enjoyed a 58-3 advantage.

Indiana made short work of Nebraska in terms of wiping out their first-half advantages. Indiana scored on its first series, the fourth time the Hoosiers have done that this season. In doing so, they scored the first rushing touchdown the Cornhuskers have conceded in the 2024 season. Nebraska would give up four more before all was said and done.

Nebraska’s second-quarter dominance? Indiana brushed it off and put 21 points on the board in the period. Indiana had 235 yards of total offense in the second quarter alone.

Indiana had a 28-7 lead at halftime. The fat lady wasn’t quite warming up her voice yet – the Cornhuskers received the second half kickoff – but Indiana comprehensively won the first half.

3. Nicolas Radicic Has To Continue To Be Fantastic

Indiana’s kicker was fantastic, but not in the way we predicted.

Believing it would be a much closer game, we thought Radicic’s field goal skills might be called into play in a way that they hadn’t been so far this season.

Indiana’s dominant offense saw to it that Radicic’s only duties were to kick seven extra points. Radicic hasn’t missed one yet this season.

Prediction

Fans celebrate a victory with members of the Indiana Hoosiers after beating the Nebraska Cornhuskers at Memorial Stadium. / Jacob Musselman-Imagn Images

In this space through the season, we’ve mostly had the margins of victory in the ballpark, even if we had the score itself a bit off-base. That streak came to a resounding halt this week.

We predicted a 24-13 victory for Indiana. A Nebraska offense we deemed to be “pedestrian” was more or less that. We also thought Nebraska’s defense might have the capability to sustain stops against Indiana’s offense.

We couldn’t have been more wrong about that latter point. Indiana moved through Nebraska’s defense like a combine through a cornfield. The Hoosiers scored on eight of their 11 offensive series on their way to an unfathomable (by us) 56-7 triumph.

We thought we learned our lesson earlier in the season to not under-sell the Hoosiers. Clearly, we did not.

It’s not that we under-estimated Indiana so much as we’re over-estimating the capacity for opponents to contend with them. In the games to come? We’ll have to risk an over-correction on our part, because Indiana is clearly capable of doing whatever they set their minds to accomplish.

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• INDIANA MOVES TO NO. 13: Indiana moved up three spots in the AP Top 25 poll released on Sunday. CLICK HERE.

• KURTIS ROURKE INJURY UPDATE: After suffering a thumb injury in the first half of Saturday's 56-7 win over Nebraska, Indiana quarterback Kurtis Rourke is not expected to play next week against Washington. CLICK HERE

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• DEFENSE FORCES RAIOLA'S MISTAKES: Nebraska freshman quarterback Dylan Raiola had thrown three interceptions all season, but he matched that total in Saturday’s 56-7 loss at Indiana. CLICK HERE

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