Indiana won ugly in West Lafayette, but for a moment, the ugliness and concern that surrounds the 2019 team took a backseat to the history made when redshirt junior quarterback Peyton Ramsey scored the game-winning touchdown in double-overtime Saturday.
If Indiana head coach Tom Allen was anyone but the head coach, he said after beating Purdue 44-41 on Saturday in West Lafayette, he would have been on top of the pile of players that swelled in the south endzone of Ross-Ade Stadium. Indiana had defeated its rival, 44-41, with a double-overtime touchdown at the hands of quarterback Peyton Ramsey.
Allen said he would have risked injury to celebrate with his players but knew he needed to shake Purdue head coach Jeff Brohm’s hand.
That unbridaled jubilation isn’t uncommon from Allen, but for anyone who watched the game from Indiana’s dominant start in the first quarter to its 18-point lead in the third quarter to the defensive collapse in the fourth and into overtime, there were major concerns about the Hoosier after the clock hit triple-zeroes.
But when the game was over and the Indiana players were sprinting toward the endzone to greet their quarterback, history was made, and that history put those glaring concerns in the backseat for a moment.
“When somebody puts their confidence in you, you want to do everything you can to make them understand that they made a good decision,” Allen said after the game. “You don’t know the future. Nobody knew the future. They made a decision, and I appreciate that. And I wanted them to know that they made the right decision, because I love this place.”
Allen, of course, was harking back to December 2016, when the future of the Indiana program was blurrier than ever after the sudden resignation of Kevin Wilson and the promotion of Allen to head coach by athletic director Fred Glass and university president Michal McRobbie. So while he was fighting the urge to jump on his players backs Saturday, it was because the program was as close as ever to the breakthrough he promised on that stage in Heinke Hall, sitting next to Glass.
Allen and the Hoosiers had secured the Old Oaken Bucket for the first time since the week before Allen became the head coach. They’d locked in their eighth win, something that’s only happened in Bloomington five times before – nine wins has only happened twice – and for the first time since 1993.
Allen, of course, was harking back to December 2016, when the future of the Indiana program was blurrier than ever after the sudden resignation of Kevin Wilson and the promotion of Allen to head coach by athletic director Fred Glass and university president Michal McRobbie. So while he was fighting the urge to jump on his players backs Saturday, it was because the program was as close as ever to the breakthrough he promised on that stage in Heinke Hall, sitting next to Glass.
Allen and the Hoosiers had secured the Old Oaken Bucket for the first time since the week before Allen became the head coach. They’d locked in their eighth win, something that’s only happened in Bloomington five times before – nine wins has only happened twice – and for the first time since 1993.
They didn’t beat any of the four teams typically casting shadows on Indiana in the Big Ten East, but they won on the road multiple times, won with two quarterbacks, won without the player they “couldn’t afford to lose” in Coy Cronk, won with one of the most inexperienced defenses in the country, the youngest defensive coordinator in the Big Ten and a first-year offensive coordinator.
In a reality where identity creates circumstance, Indiana needed to lose an 18-point lead, surrender 408 yards to a former walk-on quarterback, open the doors to Purdue’s first 100-yard rusher of the season, miss three field goals and be stung by a 2019 recruit who chose the other side of the rivalry earlier this year and still find a way to win in order to get that long-coveted eighth win.
“We never give up. Day-in and day-out, we kept fighting,” senior receiver Nick Westbrook said. “This is the end result of it. Even when times were tough and looked like the ball was not bouncing our way. The ball bounced off a dude’s knee and he caught it on the five-yard line. You can’t draw that up any other way. It happened one in a million times. For us to keep believing that we were still going to win this game was huge.”
Each senior has found his way into the role and the career he boasts today. Linebacker Reakwon Jones carries on what former Hoosiers Tegray Scales and Marcus Oliver began, while offensive linemen Hunter Littlejohn and Simon Stepaniak follow NFL linemen before them who never reached these heights in the program.
Westbrook’s dates back to his touchdown catch in the New Era Pinstripe Bowl against Duke in 2015, the near-thousand-yard season in 2016, the ACL injury in 2017 and limited roles in 2018 and 2019, when only flashes of the 2016 version of Westbrook prevailed.
Yet he caught the touchdown to begin the first overtime period Saturday.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had an overtime touchdown like that in my whole career, playing football since little league,” Westbrook said. “It just meant so much.”
When the veteran players, as Donavan Hale and Stepaniak have said in recent weeks, look back on their careers and remember when they were the young, determined class coming into Bloomington, the ache of being close more times than can be counted on human fingers is still there.
Peyton Ramsey said some of that ache is being relieved with every win of this season. Saturday’s win is just another one, and the potential for the ninth one is out there as well.
“It is very prideful, especially for me and some of the older guys, being here and living through some of the growing pains,” Ramsey said. “Now we’ve won eight, won the Bucket and have an opportunity to win nine. It means a lot.”
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