Indiana Coaching Staff Regrets Late-Game Decisions on Offense, Defense at Penn State

Indiana coach Tom Allen is proud of the way his team competed at No. 10 Penn State Saturday, but mixed with pride is lingering regret that they didn't do enough to pull the upset. 

The result was a stinging 33-24 loss. And as much as the Indiana staff may want it, they're not getting a second chance or a do-over.

"Oh, if you could, wouldn't it be awesome?" Indiana offensive coordinator Rod Carey joked Monday. "You could go back and just switch one or two – that'd be every game."

The sequence that will stick with them the most came with 5:02 left in the fourth quarter, just after a momentum-shifting interception from Indiana safety Josh Sanguinetti. The takeaway set Indiana up on the Penn State 21-yard line, trailing by three points. 

"My comment on the headset to the offense was saying, 'Let's go score a touchdown,'" Allen said Monday. "That was my whole thought process there. When we got the ball, that's what you want to do."

On first down, Indiana quarterback Brendan Sorsby took a shotgun snap and handed the ball to running back Josh Henderson, who ran up the middle for a gain of just one yard. Second down played out in similar fashion – a shotgun snap and hand-off to Henderson, only this time he tried to bounce it outside. But it was just another one-yard gain.

For most of the afternoon, Indiana's rushing attack had one of its better days. The Hoosiers entered the game ranked 13th in the Big Ten with 3.3 yards per carry and 12th in rushing yards per game at 109.5. 

On 21 combined carries, Henderson and Trent Howland combined for 88 yards, or 4.19 per carry. But the Penn State defense stepped up to shut Henderson down in a big moment, and those two plays are the calls Carey and Allen wish they could have back. 

"You look at the first and second down," Allen said. "You'd like to be more aggressive there."

"Now that the first two runs didn't work, I would have passed it now," Carey said. "I mean, they didn't work, right? If they would have worked, it would have been awesome. But yeah, it's like any play call that you do. If it works, it's great. If it doesn't, you wish you would have done something else."

After two unproductive runs, Indiana played it safe on 3rd and 8, instead of throwing it or being more aggressive with a chance to win the game. Indiana gave the ball to Henderson again for a two-yard gain, then tied the game with a field goal. Going up against a Penn State defense that leads the Big Ten with 32 sacks and an opponent third down conversion rate of 28.2 percent, they didn't want to risk disaster.

Standing by the third down call, Allen referenced a sequence in the second quarter to support his decision. The game was tied 14-14 at that point, and Indiana had the ball at the Penn State 45-yard line with just over one minute left in the half. Sorsby threw the ball late over the middle, an admittedly poor decision that led to an interception. 

Penn State then drove down the field and kicked a 51-yard field goal as the first-half ended to take a 17-14 lead into halftime. That's potentially a six-point swing. So later on, recognizing that it could tie the game with a field goal, Indiana took all risk out of the equation on 3rd and 8, ensuring that it'd at least tie the game with a field goal.

"The third down, I think, is definitely the right decision to make once you're in field-goal range," Allen said. "When you get to third down, it's like we've got to be smart with the football here. Just make sure whatever we call, we make sure we're smart and have a chance to kick a field goal to tie the game up at that point.''

Carey said he usually doesn't watch film immediately after a game – win or lose – because he's too aggravated. But after this loss, he said, he watched the game with offensive line coach Bob Bostad on the plane ride home. And after coming up just short, there are certainly plays he regrets.

"I'm my own worst critic," Carey said. "You guys can't even hold a pen to me on that. There's no way. I've never called a game in my life that I haven't had calls that I want back, and that's when we've won by a lot, lost by a lot, won close ones and lost close ones. I have never had that, and I don't think I ever will."

Following the game-tying field goal, Penn State running back Kaytron Allen quickly picked up a pair of first downs, first on a check-down pass and next on a run up the middle. 

As the clock ticked below two minutes, Penn State quarterback Drew Allar looked deep. He saw wide receiver KeAndre Lambert-Smith had one-on-one coverage with Indiana's Jordan Grier. Sanguinetti, the safety, crept up toward the line and the other safety, Louis Moore, was positioned on the far hash. Lambert-Smith had a step on Grier, and Allar made one of his best passes of the day for a 57-yard touchdown. Penn State added a safety later on, but that touchdown was the dagger.

"What keeps me up always is, do you put your guys in the best positions to go win a game?" Indiana defensive coordinator Matt Guerrieri said Monday. "I wish that I could have put us in a better position, a more protective position ... I had a 50-50 call in that situation and had an unprotected guy down the field, and I wear every bit of that."

Indiana had chances to pull off an upset that no one thought they could as a 31-point underdog. Instead, the Hoosiers stand at 2-6, needing to end the year on a four-game win streak to reach bowl eligibility. And with winnable games against Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan State and Purdue, this loss to Penn State is one Indiana could regret for a long time.