Indiana was supposed to come up to Ann Arbor, take their annual beat down, and head back to Bloomington to prepare for Oohi. That’s not what happened. Indiana played as good a game against Michigan as I have seen in my lifetime. They got pressure on Forcier, they were able to run, they took advantage of some mismatches on defense when, according to the radio team, Michigan was lined up incorrectly. As we were watching this game, we weren’t thinking, “if only Michigan could do this or do that,” or that Michigan was playing down to their opponent, but rather that Indiana was playing a very good Indiana football team. When was the last time you heard that?
For Michigan to win, they needed timely stops on defense, and some offensive magic. A lot of offensive magic.
Tate goes over the top for the short-lived lead
Down 5 in the last five minutes, Forcier engineered a drive to take the lead that was not only exhausting for the Michigan QB, but was exhausting to watch. Only to follow up a nice QB keeper leap into the endzone with another QB keeper for the 2-point conversion. One offensive play later, Indiana had a 4-point lead after the defense, stacked to the offensive right, watched a run left go for 85 yards.
Visibly hurting, Forcier went up top on third-and-eight, and found Martavious Odoms who ran a perfect skinny post for the final score.
It won’t look like it on paper, it was Indiana after all, but this was a solid win for DickRod and Big Blue. With such a young team that still obviously has a lot of learning to do, this will only help them along on their way back to national prominence.
GO BLUE!
