My Two Cents: Great Idea, Let's Flush This 'Ugly' Loss Right Now

Indiana was brutal in every way possible on Saturday in the 54-7 loss to Ohio State, and it goes far beyond the decimated quarterbacks room. The defense failed to show too, and that was even more disappointing. Flush it, and move on.

Tom Brew | Oct 24, 2021

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Before we dive into all the issues behind the 54 in the final score of Saturday's brutal loss to Ohio State, let's quickly look at the 7, and all the good things about it.

Don't worry, it won't take long.

In the three-plus hours of football at Memorial Stadium on Friday night, there was something for Indiana fans to cheer about for all of about 5 minutes.

Well, to be accurate, call it 6 minutes and 52 seconds.

On Indiana's first possession, the Hoosiers marched 75 yards in 15 plays — and scored a Big Ten touchdown! You wanted offensive coordinator Nick Sheridan to call good plays, and he did. You wanted backup quarterback Jack Tuttle to play like a starter, and he did. He completed four passes on the drives, three for first downs. And he found Peyton Hendershot, who's now Indiana's all-time receptions leader for tight ends, in the end zone for a 7-yard score.

And then Tuttle gets hurt on the play — a lower leg injury that basically knocked him out of the game. X-rays were negative, but a more thorough MRI on Sunday might show a different result.

We got everything we wanted out of Tuttle and the Indiana offense on that drive, and then — poof. End of story.

Sort of. At least it's the end of the good stuff in this story.

"Obviously, it hurt us without question,'' Indiana coach Tom Allen said of Tuttle's injury after the scoring drive. "He did a great job while he was in there. And definitely, without him in there, it just wasn't quite the same.''

The joke in the press box was that Ohio State has been playing high-level football since 1890, and they've never once lost a game to a fifth-string walk-on quarterback.

That sounds outrageous, I know, but that's what we've come to. This Indiana football team is a mess right now, with a 2-5 record, and all five losses to teams ranked No. 8 or higher at some point this season.

The biggest mess of all is in the quarterbacks room. And what a difference eight months makes.

Back in the spring, the Hoosiers were coming off a career-defining 2020 season where they went 6-1 in the Big Ten, erasing long losing streaks to Penn State, Michigan and Wisconsin in the process. When they assembled for spring practice, the talk of the fall was enthusiastic. The penciled-in depth chart looked like this:

Michael Penix Jr.
Jack Tuttle
Dexter Williams
Donaven McCulley
Grant Gremel

Penix missed the entire spring, of course, still in rehab mode after tearing an ACL for the second time last November. But big things were still expected of him, and the plan was for him to be 100 percent by the opener. Everyone was sure that was going to happen.

The plan was for Tuttle and redshirt freshman Dexter Williams to get a lot of work in the spring with Penix out. But Williams tore an ACL on March 21, and his year was done.

McCulley was still at Lawrence North, trying to win a basketball state championship with future Indiana basketball commit C.J. Gunn. So when Williams went out, Gremel, a walk-on from Noblesville, Ind., actually got a lot of work out of necessity, just to have another arm out there.

I had to ask Tom Allen after the loss Saturday night if there was ever a time this year, in his thousands of hours of planning of how this year might go, that Gremel would actually be called up to throw important passes against Ohio State.

His lips pursed, and his head shaking during my question, the answer was obvious.

"Well, you know, Grant has taken some reps in practice,'' Allen said. "But there was sometimes it felt like Donaven was a little bit rattled, you know, and (putting Gremel in) just kind of get him calmed down. And we just wanted to see him progress through that.

"Obviously, he did some positive things. Grant, obviously, is a guy that can throw the ball. But, yeah, that was never a thought going into the season. But you've got yoir starter (Penix) down. And now your No. 2 (Tuttle) goes down. And now you got one scholarship quarterback left healthy, and that's Donaven. So you've just got to battle. Next man up, but not necessarily at all what any of us expected for sure.''

Indiana had 75 yards on that first drive — and only 128 on the day. Those other 53 yards came on 39 plays and the Hoosiers came nowhere close to scoring again. McCulley completed one pass, a nice throw for 30 yards to Ty Fryfogle, and Gremel's three completions were only good for 9 total yards.

We won't find out until Monday how severe Tuttle's injury is. Allen said late Saturday night that Tuttle ''was in a lot of pain.'' And just because Allen keeps saying that Penix is ''week to week,'' that doesn't mean THIS week when the Hoosiers travel to Maryland for a game that is absolutely now a must-win. He's probably not an option yet, either, with that separated AC joint in his left throwing shoulder.

If Tuttle can't go, the questions far exceed the answers. What's become clear is that throwing McCulley to the wolves right now would be a huge mistake. He didn't even get to campus until June, and reading between the lines, he's not comfortable with handling the passing aspect of the Indiana offense. That's not uncommon for a kid. Sure, he's a great athlete and he can run, but he's nowhere near ready to play a complete game at quarterback in the Big Ten.

The quarterback play was just a part of the problem, of course. In a 54-7 loss, nobody stands out as playing well. The biggest disappointment of all was the Indiana defense, which had been playing well. Ohio State scorched them, scoring touchdowns — and scoring with ease — on their first six possessions.

Disappointing, and disgusting.

"Yeah, no, it was pretty difficult,'' Indiana linebacker Micah McFadden said of trying to handle the Ohio State onslaught. "I think they did a great job just running through their tempos. We couldn't really get our feet in the ground early, and it hurt us. They hit us on some gashes in the red zone and they were kind of dinkin' and dunkin' us down the field a little bit, but their receivers made the plays, and their quarterback played great. But it hurts for this defense, and I'm sad we didn't play better.''

Indiana has to move on from this game quickly. There are five games left in the season, road games at Maryland, Michigan and Purdue, and home games with Rutgers and Minnesota. That's a much softer part of the schedule compared to what they've already been through.

They need to salvage some pride — and some wins — heading down the home stretch. They have beatable opponents awaiting them.

"We've got to flush this,'' McFadden said. "This is a start to a completely new season for the Hoosiers. We're moving on to the next game. We can't dwell on this. I mean, hats off to them, they're a great team, but we're better than that, and we know that.

"It's college football, so you've got to come back every week ready to play. So it's on me, it's on the leaders of this team, it's on the coaching staff and every player in the locker room to step up and find a way to win a game."

Must win at Maryland? No doubt about it. Saving the season is one thing, saving some pride is even more important. The loss to Ohio State was embarrassing, but they are that good, too. But now it's on the Hoosiers to turn this season around.

Can they? We're going to have to see.

"I think that's fair. I think that's a realistic challenge, without question,'' Allen said when asked how the players will pick themselves up after this beatdown. "But I also feel like just by listening to them talk to each other on the sideline and halftime. You know — we don't have a choice. It's not anywhere close where any of us thought it was going to be.

"But, at the same time, I'm proud of our guys for staying together. And I think that's what they're going to continue to do. But, yeah, I think the challenges are there for sure. But you know what, I mean, LEO is our foundation. And it's about accountability, toughness, and love when things are going your way and when things aren't. Right now, the injuries continue to mount. And the disappointments have continued. And so you've got to be able to fall back on who you are and what you are made of internally. And so that accountability and that toughness is paramount at this point.''

Moving on. It's the only option.

"That isn't going to change. As tough as tonight was, it's one that we just have to put in the trash and press on,'' Allen said. "That's a pretty special football team that we just played tonight. I've been here for several years and with that quarterback (C.J. Stroud) playing the way he is right now, it's impressive. They've got a lot of talent, without question. And you saw a lot of it tonight.''

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