IU - OSU 2005

While Purdue plays the wimpy B10 schedule without Michigan and OSU, IU played the first of the 2 heavyweights today at home. As always the buckeye nuts invaded b'town so Travis and I headed down early, got our BuffaLouies hot wings and took Dad's Varsity Club parking spot. Good Food, Good Beer, Good Company, and surprisingly Great weather. An excellent tailgate except for that Car Alarm going off for a good 2 hours after the Columbus convicts tried to break into that car.

I have 2 main areas to comment on today... The team and the zebras. Lets start with the good and then move on to the bad.

My 2 biggest concerns going into the game were how IU's young QB and WRs would handle the Buckeye's Blitzes, and could IU's defense stay off the field enough to be fresh in the 4th quarter?

The short answer was No and No.

The long answer was that IU won the coin toss, elected to receive, went 3 and out as a run blitz stopped a 2nd down run for a 2 yd loss and a linebacker blitz on 3rd down forced a quick throw and incompletion. That in a nutshell was the offense all day. The defense held OSU to a quick and 3 and out in a preview of what would happen on that side of the ball regularly all day. But OSU's first punt was muffed and OSU had a first down inside the red zone and proceeded to score a TD off the IU miscue. IU's offense went 3 and out and the Defense after bending, saw Porter pick off a pass at the goal line on a great anticipation move and after returning the ball to the OSU 30, IU's offense did nothing and IU had to settle for a FG to open the 2nd quarter and a 7-3.

The 2nd quarter saw more of the same. The OSU defenders were being very physical with our receivers and the blitzes weren't giving Powers any time to make any plays. With the Defense on the field for 10 of the 15 minutes in the 2nd quarter, they wore down and OSU scored 10 pts for a 17-3 lead at the half.

IU kicked off to the start the second half and recovered a muffed catch at the 25 yard line. See my comments about the officiating below for what happened here. Nonetheless after the do-over, OSU moved the ball down to the IU 43 when former full-back turned linebacker John Pannozzo ripped the ball from OSU and ran 57 yards to make it 17-10 OSU. Unfortunately the defense which had been on the field all day gave up a long drive and OSU took a 24-10 lead. IU's special teams and offense showed some life on the next kickoff as the OSU kicker for the only time of the day didn't kick the ball through the end zone. Instead Gilmore handled the kick 3 yds deep and brought it out. 68 yards later, IU was in business. Some trickery with a halfback pass to Hardy for 20 yards had IU at the 12. After 2 plays for no gain, a sack made for a long field goal attempt which was wide left. Pretty much game over right there. But the Defense held OSU to another 3 and out and then IU tried to go long on their next possession. Hardy, being held the whole way down the field couldn't get to the ball, but an OSU safety did and in turn ran it back for a 31-10 OSU lead.

The 4th quarter saw OSU kick a long field goal and run a punt back for a TD. Final score OSU 41 - IU 10. That is a GOOD OSU team. Today we saw the team that had #2 Texas beat earlier in the season. It was a very good measuring stick for where this team needs to head. And I have no doubt that Hoeppner know exactly what it will take to get there.

The good that will come out of this game is that Powers will learn a TON from the film of this game. The education that he will gain will be invaluable for the rest of this year and beyond. The receivers also learned today that the good teams in the league will hold and grab on every play and the officials in the B10 will never call it. This will pay divendends in future years as these guys will get stronger in the offseason and be able to better deal with it as they mature.

Now the bad... B10 Officiating has always been horrible and IU always sees the worst officiating crews. Today might have been the worst ever!

On Grosfield's muff on the punt in the first quarter, the official right behind him blew his whistle at the exact moment he was starting to make the catch. On the video, you can see him physically flinch. That should have been an inadvertent whistle and a replay. Of course since it benefitted OSU, this whistle was totally ignored... OSU's ball. This is particularly frustrating because the exact same thing happened to start the second half and the opposite call was made, again benefitting OSU.

A blatant pass interference call happened right in front of the IU bench. Hep went nuts and was out on the field earning a sideline warning. Good Job Coach Hep!!!

Gilmore had a first down catch and was tackled by his facemask. The official saw the catch but missed the facemask. As it happened right in front of Hep, he was chewing on the zebra pretty good when the booth called for a review. Since the B10 won't allow IU to use its video scoreboard to show "controversial" replays, we had no idea in the stadium if it was a catch or not. Unfortunately the booth ruled it a "no catch" and IU had to punt. Since I had the game on my DVR, I had to watch the replay. What in the world were they watching in the booth? The 3 replay angles all showed it to be a catch and showed the 15 yd facemask penalty they missed. Even the announcers called it a no-brainer catch.

The start of the 2nd half with IU down 17-3, had IU kicking off to OSU. IU kicked a high pooch kick and one of the OSU up men called for a faircatch. The official blew his whistle while the ball was in the air. the OSU player proceeded to muff the ball and IU recovered at the 25 yd line. Because of that official screwing up and blowing his whistle, the call was an inadvertent whistle and a do-over. IU had to kick off again. Amazing they could ignore that call earlier, but not now. What a screw job.

And there were way too many missed holds, missed blocks in the back, missed defensive holding, and missed pass interference for both sides. It was inexcusable officiating.

I must say it was nice to see Hep late in the game call over the lead official during a time out and pull out a piece of paper. He spent over a minute with the guy. My guess was he was reviewing all the botched calls throughout the game and was giving the guy a headsup on the video he would be sending to the B10 office. According to Hep's post game interview, the crew apologized to him. Isn't that nice? Doesn't that just give you a warm fuzzy? Thanks guys, that makes the royal screw job okay.