Indiana zenith, Part Deux

 Welp. I was wrong.

What an idiot. What a fool. What a maroon.

I say this loudly, proudly, and twice for the people in the back. I say it because I wanted to be wrong. I wanted Indiana University to show us what we'd seen for four games wasn't a mirage, that this was (as we all suspected) an Indiana football program dealing from an entirely different deck than a whole lot of 4-0 Indiana teams in the past.

And so Ohio State 42, Indiana 35 over in Columbus, and the No. 3 Buckeyes were on their knees at the end thanking the football gods the Hoosiers spent more than a half acting as a double agent, intent as much on sabotage as success.

Show of hands here. When the Hoosiers went down 35-7 three minutes into the third quarter, weren't a lot of you saying "That stupid Blob guy. He was right. Indiana isn't ready to compete with the Ohio States of the world"?

I mean, other than the first part. I'm sure the Blob is not the first thing that popped into your mind.

("You got that right, pal," you're saying)

But then Michael Penix Jr. started throwing and Ty Fryfogle started catching instead of dropping, and weird stuff started happening. Like 491 yards passing and five TDs for Penix. Like 218 yards receiving and three touchdowns for Fryfogle, all in the second half. Like an Indiana defense that got the ball back for Penix nearly every time it needed to.

Like, oh, Indiana 28, Ohio State 7 from the 12:10 mark of the third quarter on. And the seven for Ohio State came on a pick six right after a drop cost Indiana a touchdown, a 14-swing that saved the Buckeyes.

Conclusions:

1. Ohio State is an elite program.

2. Indiana is not yet an elite program, but can sure play one on TV when it has to.

Previous Hoosiers would have rolled over and stuck all four legs in the air when it went down 35-7 to the No. 3 team in the country, on the road. But these Hoosiers are Tom Allen's Hoosiers, and there is no give-up in 'em. There is instead grit and fire and a willingness to keep the throttle floorboarded no matter what.

This is especially noticeable on the defensive side of the ball, where Indiana has historically been weaker in the knees. There are any number of years when Indiana has been able to ding the scoreboard with a fair amount of regularity; in turn, there are almost zero years when the defense hasn't done a serviceable imitation of a screen door on a breezy day.

To be sure, this defense got run on the way Ohio State runs on everyone, but it also bowed its back when it needed to. It intercepted Justin Fields, as good a quarterback as there is in America,  three times. It sacked him five times. It made him a lot more miserable than Ohio State's more celebrated D made Penix.

In the end, all of it meant Indiana's No. 9 ranking wasn't nearly as preposterous as some doubters suspected.  And it meant the Hoosiers might possibly be the second-best team in the Big Ten, or if not that the third best.

It also meant Indiana got it all kinds of right when it hired Tom Allen from within to guide the program. But of course you already know that.