Indiana came into Saturday's home game against No. 13 Michigan hoping to etch a big win into the 2019 season, but the Hoosiers fell far short in a game comprised of mistakes, injuries and uncharacteristic play, as Michigan defeated Indiana, 39-14

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Coming into the game, the biggest question surrounding the team was the status of the Big Ten's best statistical wide receiver Whop Philyor after his head injury at Penn State. The IU leading receiver did not dress for the game, and his absence was felt.

Peyton Ramsey and the Indiana offense started strong, hitting the Michigan defense with a flag route to Ty Fryfogle, screens to Donavan Hale and Peyton Hendershot and a deep fade route to Nick Westbrook that drew a pass interference penalty. After a productive first quarter, when Indiana scored two touchdowns, the offense sputtered for three three-and-outs.

Fryfogle exited twice in the second quarter with a leg injury after a short play on the sideline, and once he was out, the Hoosiers struggled to find a playmaker in the passing game against a top-three Big Ten passing defense.

At halftime, Indiana had only passed for 98 yards.

It wouldn't get much better from there, as Ramsey eventually eclipsed the 200-yard mark, but Philyor's backup, David Ellis, had caught just two passes by the fourth quarter.

Miles Marshall and Nick Westbrook came up with big plays in significant situations, but the Hoosiers didn't have their security blanket in the passing game.

Late in the first quarter, Indiana jumped to a 14-7 lead and maintaining a majority of the momentum early in the game, but Michigan outscored the Hoosiers 32-0 for the rest of the game.

Shea Patterson and the Michigan receivers could have whatever they wanted Saturday.

Coming into the game, Indiana stressed a need to win one-on-one matchups in the passing game on defense, but the Indiana secondary struggled early and often in those scenarios. Wolverine wideouts Ronnie Bell, Donovan Peoples-Jones and Nico Collins all caught one-on-one passes for scores.

Raheem Layne was beaten one-on-one because he was a step behind Collins, and Tiawan Mullen was beaten on a good pass-and-catch by Michigan.

Patterson was putting the ball where it needed to be on most passing plays, but the IU secondary wasn't getting into position, and some plays could have gone for bigger gains than they did. Layne got beaten on a one-on-one route in the redzone, but Patterson missed his wide-open target, and Jaylin Williams got beaten deep and committed a pass interference.

Those struggles carried into the second half, as Juwan Burgess was beaten on a simple post route by Nico Collins, who blew by the safety and outran the IU defense on his way to a 76-yard, back-breaking score to push Michigan ahead, 32-14.

Layne was beaten again to seal the game near the end of the third quarter – a play following a strip-sack fumble on Ramsey.

From a 4th-and-1 holding call that killed a long second-half drive to an illegal touching penalty that negated a catch and forced a fourth down when Indiana needed to respond to Michigan's onslaught, Indiana made mistakes in areas it hadn't, for the most part, this season and areas that kept Indiana competitive against Penn State the week before.

The continued struggles in the secondary were certainly uncharacteristic, except for the fact that the young defensive backs came into the game relatively untested. But on 3rd-and-1 with Stevie Scott injured, Indiana turned to a sweep handoff to Donavan Hale to try to convert and was quickly stopped.

Indiana hadn't shown a capability of compiling consecutive mistakes to allow teams to jump out to large leads, but the Hoosiers repeatedly responded to mistakes with more mistakes, highlighted by the strip-sack fumble followed by an easy score for Michigan to extend the lead to 32-14.

Indiana also had only turned the ball over multiple times on three occasions this season – against Ball State, Connecticut and Rutgers – but surrendered the ball to Michigan twice Saturday.

Starting with the absence of Whop Philyor, injuries hurt Indiana all game.

Ty Fryfogle went down twice before eventually leaving the game altogether, and Stevie Scott did the same, missing three drives in the second quarter before suffering another injury in the third quarter and not returning.

Matthew Bedford went down in the third quarter on the same play as Scott and was carted off the field.

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