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There's no sugarcoating it. On Saturday, Indiana allowed Penn State to completely dominate in every aspect.

Indiana didn't have an answer for the Penn State rushing attack, allowing 179 yards and four scores on the ground. They couldn't stop the Nittany Lion passing attack, which after Sean Clifford threw for 229 yards on just 15 completions, made way for Drew Allar to throw for two touchdowns of his own.

Penn State's 483 yards of total offense was answered by just 196 yards of Indiana ball movement, an attack that featured three separate quarterbacks and more backwards plays than points on the board. Indiana lost 45-14, and yet, 31 points feels like a slimmer margin than what the performance on the field showed.

For almost the entirety of Indiana's contest with Penn State on Saturday, the Hoosiers didn't belong on the same field as their visitors. The same program that two seasons ago finished the season ranked 12th in the final AP poll of the season has now dropped 14 of their last 15 Big Ten outings. To say it's a nosedive is nearly an understatement. The bottom has completely fallen out of Indiana, each week seeming to reestablish a new absolute floor.

As Scott Dolson sat on the side and watched Tom Allen speak to the media and dodge questions about his decisioning regarding Indiana's quarterbacks while giving the same ho-hum rhetorics about how Indiana is on the cusp of turning things around, the question rises of just how long the leash is for a turnaround.

For how long will Indiana continue to settle for roll-over performances and excuse it for a supposed turnabout of fortune when there's no apparent sign of one on the horizon?

Allen has spoke in the past of Indiana's trend of developing patterns and how it can be concerning for his program to continue to miss tackles or not be able to execute down the stretch. While all of which are true, the elephant in the room surrounding this program entails the continuous backwards fall the Hoosiers have found themselves entangled in since the beginning of the 2021 season.

Whether it be the supposed struggle to hire impactful coordinators once others leave, develop budding young talent into their full potential, or capitalize on momentum when it's presented to them, results like Saturday's have become commonplace. No longer is Indiana defeating the teams they're "supposed" to, keeping it close with the higher powers of the conference, or garnering any respect for how they play.

Instead, after nearly two years of being walked over almost every time they hit the field, the Hoosiers are nearing Big Ten purgatory. Yet, it's not an issue that can be solved just overnight, and the longer it goes on, the worse it's likely to get. Again, it remains to be seen just how long it will be before things get right. But for as long as the regime stays the same, you can likely expect more of the same from Indiana's football program.

Now, a regime change can mean a lot of things, but to say it's only as deep as the personnel on the field or the coaches on the sideline and in the box would only be scratching the surface.

Due to the nature of fandom surrounding Indiana athletics, it's likely a fair assumption to say that the football program doesn't have the funding from donors or NIL collectives that the basketball teams on campus do. They probably never will, and that's kind of just the nature of the beast with the university. Yet, the lack of investment in the football program has revealed itself more and more each time out, especially against the likes of a Penn State program that prides itself on carrying the flag for their university's athletic department.

Indiana has been long overdue for an upgrade to player facilities. Although a new locker room came about as a nice addition, the weight room and practice facilities are relatively sub-par in regards to the rest of the Big Ten. All of that comes with money, but with limited funding in those aspects, those upgrades aren't coming at the rates of their competition's. They aren't now, and they won't in the future.

It goes without saying that being lackluster in those areas hurts recruiting and can lead players to search for greener pastures elsewhere. What makes a program with the trajectory of Indiana's more attractive than that of the likes of other suitors? The transfer portal will, and so far has, done more good than bad for the state of college athletics. Yet, much like the NIL funding situation for the football program, the discrepancy between Indiana and other programs are glaring when it comes to it.

The recruiting class coming into Bloomington for 2023 is a smaller one, and so far is ranked dead last in the Big Ten according to Rivals. Of course, nothing can truly be said until those guys hit the field, but with such a bleak outlook on the immediate future and the downhill trajectory showing no signs of turning around, the on-field performance seems to be a ways away from raw improvement. For the forseeable future, Indiana has to work with what they've got.

The reality of that is what Indiana's got isn't a lot. Frustration and poor performances has lead to a string of six straight losses, each of which being worse than the one before. The team that found ways to win in the first three games of the season has now found ways to lose them.

Indiana still sends the same old voices up to speak on the state of the team, none of which actually revealing anything, while their on-field performance does more than enough talking. Until things change, whether it's at the surface level or beyond, there's no reason to believe that Indiana has the ability to steer the ship back towards being a respectable football program.

Saturday was just the latest example of how big the gap really is.

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