Football is a weird game with an abnormally shaped ball — but even by those standards, Indiana’s game against Iowa ended in bizarre fashion.
The Hoosiers stopped Iowa on fourth down with 16 seconds left, and took over near midfield. Iowa still had three timeouts remaining, but still needed a miracle. IU went into victory formation, but ran what head coach Curt Cignetti called ‘victory delay,’ as quarterback Fernando Mendoza attempted to stand around in the backfield to kill off a few extra seconds before kneeling down.
Indiana was able to run off five seconds on first down, and then four seconds on second and third downs. But the officials blew some of those plays dead before Mendoza went down, which seemingly prevented IU from running off even more time.
Cignetti was confused why the officiating crew did that.
“I’ve got to get a clarification from the Big Ten,” Cignetti said after the game. “Iowa didn’t even rush on the first one. (Mendoza) went back, and then the ref blew the whistle. One guy on the sideline gave me one interpretation, and the referee gave me a completely different one.”
It forced the Hoosiers to snap the ball on fourth down, with three seconds left. If Mendoza took another knee, and any time remained, the clock would stop and Iowa would get one more chance to score a game-tying touchdown. Punting the ball would’ve run out the clock, but dangerous Iowa returner Kaden Wetjen’s presence made that option very risky.
So Cignetti went another route: he told Mendoza to run backwards, all the way through the back of the end zone, for an intentional safety. IU’s quarterback followed directions, but an Iowa defender caught up to him, so he slid down in the end zone. The play gave the Hawkeyes an extra two points, but it ran out the clock and ended the game.
“Whatever it takes to win the game,” Mendoza said. “Coach said, ‘Hey, take a safety, run through the back of the end zone. And I didn’t ever wanna put our team in jeopardy where maybe if I slid with one second left, there could be some type of quirk that would be called and we have to punt it or do something on fourth down. So I just wanted to get out of the safety.”
Short-yardage struggles
Despite the victory, Indiana saw some big problems resurface on offense on Saturday.
The Hoosiers had a tough day in the red zone in the season-opener against Old Dominion, but seemed to figure some things out since then for short-yardage spots. IU reverted to old ways against Iowa, though. The team went a combined 3 for 9 on Saturday in third or fourth downs from two yards or less.
A review of those plays showed offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan utilized a good balance of run and pass plays in those situations. Of those nine short-yardage plays, Indiana went with four running plays and five passes.
One rushing play worked, but even that one was a bit arduous: Kaelon Black needed a second effort to pick up a first down against an Iowa stacked box. The successful passing plays in short-yardage spots worked well: a well-designed slant completion to Elijah Sarratt in the third quarter, and then Sarratt sat down in a soft spot in Iowa’s zone defense in the fourth quarter and Mendoza hit him for an eventual 24-yard gain after a broken tackle.
Shanahan did make some big mistakes, though. The most egregious example was a sequence in the second quarter. Roman Hemby broke some tackles on second down for a nice gain, putting IU at third and 1. The Hoosiers went back to Hemby, and he got tackled at the line of scrimmage because of a blitzing defensive back who went untouched. They then lined up for a shotgun running play, against a stacked box for Iowa. IU called timeout from the sideline to avoid disaster — only to come back in the exact same formation, running the same play. Iowa stacked the box even more heavily after the timeout, and Indiana got stuffed.
Some of the issues could’ve been avoidable with audibles at the line of scrimmage. Cignetti said Mendoza wasn’t calling any audibles on Saturday, worried about maintaining a smooth operation in a noisy environment. It’s unclear how much freedom Mendoza had to check out of plays at the line of scrimmage in IU’s four home games. But there were several moments when Iowa was clearly stacking the box and bringing a blitz, and Mendoza couldn’t do anything about it.
The Hawkeyes have a good defensive front, but Indiana will see other good units coming up — Oregon and Penn State will present similar challenges. The Hoosiers will need to work out some of those short-yardage kinks for those games.
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