Indiana gets Masoned

Bloomington, IN

In honor of my trip to Indiana, this update gets a Kingpin theme.

We got in to Bloomington early on Friday so we decided to head to Nick's to play a little Sink the Biz.   This game needs to find its way to Dinkytown.  The rules are pretty easy.  Pour the beer, in a steady stream, in to a small glass that is in a bucket of beer.  Whoever sinks the glass has to drink the glass.  If anybody sinks three in a row they must drink the entire bucket of beer. 

With the amount of beer that was consumed on Friday night, Mrs. Whitebread woke up feeling a little like this: 

So naturally, we got a little bit of a slow start to Saturday morning.  However, I was quite impressed with the tailgating scene at Indiana.  Memorial Stadium (and Assembly Hall) is about 7 blocks north of campus.  The first few blocks of that walk are housing and then the last 4-5 is a grassy area with trees mixed in that allows for a great tailgate.

Prior to this I would have ranked the golf course at Michigan as the top tailgating area that I've been at in the Big Ten but I think Indiana has a better set up.  And despite the quality of the team most of the campus and many alumni show up to tailgate.

I know what you're wondering now.  But how were the girls?  As a married man, on a trip with Mrs. Whitebread, I couldn't take any pictures so I'll just leave you with this gif as a proxy for what we saw.

The thing about playing Indiana is that they are all offense and no defense.  They average 42 points-per-game and they have a top 10 passing offense (came in to the game on pace to break the B1G record for yards-per-game) but they also sported one of the 10 worst rushing defenses in the NCAA.  So watching a game against them is a little bit like this:

The game got off to a great start with a flea flicker moving the ball in to scoring position.  The drive was culminated with a 3rd down TD pass to Chaska phenom Derek Engel.

IU followed with a FG.

Oh, a field goal!  Look out.  IU brought field goals to a touch down fight!

The Gophers ended the first half with a 28-13 lead and a 100-yard advantage in passing yards so the Hoosier decided to head back to the tailgates.

The scene at Memorial Stadium early in the 3rd quarter.  The Hoosier "Faithful" had clearly seen enough.

The Gophers weren't done yet though.  David Cobb added a 27-yard TD in the 3rd quarter to take a 35-13 lead with 6:24 to go in the 3rd quarter.  Cobb's score brought the Gophers rally to 28 unanswered.

David Cobb had 188 yards rushing with 1 TD and 48 yards receiving.  He now has 803 yards rushing on the season.

35-13, suck it Indiana.

But like I mentioned earlier, playing Indiana looks like this.

And Indiana responded.  The change of QB from Tre Roberson to Nate Sudfeld gave the IU offense rhythm and all of a sudden they were hitting on all cylinders.  The Gophers pulled out all the stops from a bomb (that was dropped) on 4th and 2 to a fake punt that was a cleat away from making it but it didn't matter.  Before you knew it Indiana had a 39-35 lead and the Gophers fans were thinking I know this feeling, go away and let me puke in my toilet.

About that time the Gophers must have remembered they had just beaten Nebraska last week and were now playing Indiana.  We're better than this team; we should score at will on this team.  And just like that, Nelson found Maxx Williams for his 4th TD pass and 298th passing yard of the game as Maxx rumbled for a TD and a 42-39 lead.

Maxx Williams 50 yd TD for the the go-ahead score

But, the touchdown was a little like this scene in Kingpin.

Beer and nipping out should be a great combination it just doesn't always work, and Maxx Williams scoring a TD is good but the score was too quick.  It left 3:06 on the clock.  That is a lot of time for an Indiana offense that is moving the ball and scoring on will to find a way to score 3 to tie or worse.  And just as they had for the last quarter and a half IU moved the ball down the field and in to the red zone with ease.  Gopher fans in attendance were praying just to hold them to a FG and force OT.  But then, in Glen Mason-like fashion, something unbelievable happened to the Hoosiers.  Tevin Coleman ran out in the flats and Nate Sudfeld tried to hit him with a backward pass.  Coleman bobbled it and Brock Vereen hit him to make sure it wasn't caught but neither Vereen nor Coleman seemed to understand the pass was backward.  However, linebacker Aaron Hill did so he picked up the ball and ran with it effectively ending the game

RB Tevin Coleman screws up by running backward and QB Sudfeld screws up worse by throwing a bad pass behind him leaving Indiana Masoned in Bloomington on homecoming.

While I fully acknowledge the win looks a little like this.

A win is a win and as a Gopher fan I don't feel the need to apologize because I've seen this game end the opposite way so many times in the past.  With the win, the Gophers move to 7-2 (3-2) on the season and now are in 3rd place in the Big Ten Legends division.

Yes, that is Michigan and Iowa behind us in the standings.

We get Penn State this week which seems like a winnable game.  The early line is Gophers -1.5 which is a change from their high-single digits to low double-digits underdog status the last three weeks.  If/when we beat Penn State and have an off-week I will go through rooting interests for the Gophers to get to the B1G Championship Game in Indy (to be massacred by the Buckeyes) but until then lets just enjoy this one.

When you're the Gophers, enjoy winning conference records when you can.  They don't happen often enough.