Friday, September 1, 2017

The joy (or something) of hanging around

Lee Corso was back in Bloomington last night with the College GameDay boys, and that meant it was time to roll out all those great Corso stories. Some of them might actually be true.

There was the time, for instance, when he fulfilled a promise to bring a Rose Bowl team to Bloomington ... by scheduling USC. And there was that other time when his Hoosiers, miracle of miracles, scored first against Woody Hayes' mighty Ohio State legions, and Corso called timeout to get a picture of the scoreboard.

Of course, the Ohio State legions went on to win by about eleventy hundred points.

Which is kind of what happened last night.

What happened last night is Indiana led early, still led 14-13 at halftime, and was still hanging around very, very late in the third quarter, when the No. 2 Buckeyes only led 27-21. With Corso in the house, new Indiana coach Tom Allen might have felt inspired at that point to take his own picture of the scoreboard.

Of course, he didn't, being a man who's serious about turning Indiana into a school for whom football is not just something to do until basketball starts. And of course, Ohio State proceeded to run off 22 straight points to outscore IU 36-7 in the second half and win going away, 49-21.

It's basically what everyone, even diehard IU fans, knew was eventually going to happen, even when the Hoosiers were leading and then hanging around for three quarters. And it sent them out into the night with that hanging-around semi-happiness familiar to generations of Indiana football fans.

Well, at least we hung with 'em for awhile. Three quarters, almost! That was pretty good, right?

It was. And maybe it indicates IU won't be, you know, IU this year, Which means they'll win six games, maybe even seven, go to the Radial Tire Bowl O' Granola Bowl and win it, maybe.

What we learned last night, after all, is Richard Lagow is a pretty good quarterback, and Simmie Cobbs is a really good receiver, and Jordan Howard and Tevin Coleman aren't around anymore. Which is to say, Indiana rushed for 17 yards last night. Seventeen. Meanwhile, Lagow threw the football 65 times.

Doubtless that is not the sort of balanced attack Allen would like to see.

On the plus side, Ohio State scored just one touchdown against Indiana's defense in the first half. And the Hoosiers hung around until almost the fourth quarter.

That's pretty good? Right?



No comments:

Post a Comment