Disappointing season leaves Hoosiers unsatisfied
By CHRIS GOFF
ISL Assistant Editor
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Written in block lettering high on a wall of one of the Hoosiers’ meeting rooms at Memorial Stadium are traits any coach would want to see in his team: ‘relentless,’ ‘fearless,’ ‘loyal,’ ‘honest,’ ‘accountable,’ ‘unselfish’ and ‘confident.’
Coach Kevin Wilson readily applies those terms to his 2013 Hoosiers. The one he cannot is ‘win.’ Indiana did that just five times on a schedule that included eight home dates. Instead of practicing for a bowl game, Wilson is spending his third straight December on the road recruiting.
“We made some progress,” Wilson said. “Our guys worked hard. Our schedule was reasonably competitive. We played some competitive football. We’re not satisfied with 5-7. You’re not beating your chest or proud. It’s not what you want. Our goal is not to be competitive. Our goal is to win. We weren’t quite good enough this year.”
(Photo by Chris Goff.)
In the end, the Hoosiers gave their fans two memorable victories over winning teams in Bowling Green and Penn State. Things started off fine at 3-2 but went bad quickly thanks in part to a grueling schedule. Indiana opponents enter mid-December with a combined winning percentage of .605 (89-58).
While the Hoosiers’ record is widely viewed as a disappointment, with slim home losses to Navy and Minnesota dashing hopes of a dream season, players insist the program is not standing still and that intangible qualities have Indiana on the rise.
“We didn’t get the results we wanted this year,” senior Greg Heban said, “but every year with Coach Wilson coming in we’ve continued to improve.
“With the class we had this past year and the leadership of the young guys, we’re just going to continue to improve. I’m excited to come back and watch these guys next year. We set the foundation here for what the standard is for IU football and what needs to be done.
“They’re going to fulfill that the next couple of years.”
A resounding win over hated Purdue enables the Hoosiers to head into the offseason on an upswing. But they expected more. So high were Indiana’s standards in August that the word ‘bowl’ was considered taboo.
A defense as lousy as ever caused the season to die young. No winning streak. No road victory. And certainly no bowl.
What hurts even more is that the Hoosiers received some fine individual performances. They had the Big Ten’s fourth leading passer in Nate Sudfeld (2,523 yards), ninth leading rusher in Tevin Coleman (958 yards) and fourth leading receiver in Cody Latimer (72 catches). The offense scored a lot of points and set a slew of records, but struggled at times.
Perhaps the defining image of this season was a football glancing off the hands of Coleman in the final seconds against Minnesota on Nov. 2. The Hoosiers had rallied from a 22-point, third-quarter deficit to reach second-and-goal at the 9-yard line, needing a field goal to tie or a touchdown to win. Instead, the Hoosiers invented a new way to lose: the botched lateral.
(Photo by Chris Goff.)
“Sitting here not being a bowl team makes me mad,” Wilson said four weeks later. “I don’t wish a lot of do-overs. Yet, where did we really flounder it away? A flare pass that didn’t get executed.”
Short of throwing forward on key plays, opinions differ on how Indiana can get out of this rut of continual disappointment.
Focus on quarterback, said Wilson.
“We’ve got to develop that position. All those guys can play really good,” he said, alluding also to Tre Roberson and Cameron Coffman. “This year we played pretty good at that spot. Sometimes not good at all. Sometimes the surrounding components made the quarterback look good.”
Focus on defense, said Heban.
“As long as we had the offense like we did who continued to put up points, it came down to a couple of stops every game to get that win,” he said.
Michigan State advanced to the Rose Bowl because its defense permitted Ohio State no points over the final 20 ½ minutes of the Big Ten title game. The Hoosiers did not advance anywhere because their defenders rarely stopped anybody.
Indiana lacked star power or creative schemes on that side of the ball. Speed was an issue. Tackling was poor all year. Talent was in short supply. Youth was too prevalent.
In six of their seven losses, the Hoosiers permitted 240 yards rushing. The lone exception was the Michigan State game at Spartan Stadium in October. That’s when the Spartans settled for 238 yards and four scores on the ground.
“Any defense is going to be frustrated with some of the results we had,” Heban said. “I viewed it as ‘my’ defense being the leader. I have a little weight on my shoulder for how the defense performed this year.”
He’s not alone.
It was a tough season against a tough schedule, an up-and-down season that ultimately felt like so many others. The Hoosiers have gone 4-8, 5-7, 1-11, 4-8 and 5-7 the past five seasons. No one else in the conference has won fewer than six games each of those seasons. The only other teams that approach Indiana’s 41 losses – Illinois and Purdue, at 39 apiece – each made two bowls over that stretch.
The clock on Wilson, a first-time head coach, will start in 2014, his fourth year. While more bumps are surely in store – this is Indiana football, after all – Wilson isn’t straying from his vision. He and his players have built a strong relationship. But now comes the final step: winning.
“It’s going to be difficult,” Wilson said. “It’s my job to look at the whole picture and not make excuses, not point fingers, but keep pushing and win games. We’ve got a great school making a phenomenal commitment to our kids and to our program.
“We’ve got a chance to be a good team. I expect our team to do that. We’re capable of success.”
Follow Chris Goff on Twitter: chrisgoff_ISL.
