Indiana’s intentional safety produced a brutal bad beat

The Indiana Hoosiers had a hard time with the Iowa Hawkeyes on Saturday, but wound up holding on for a relatively narrow victory. For some, however, the final play of the game was an absolute heartbreaker.

The Hoosiers led Iowa 20-13 with three seconds left while facing 4th and 19 from their own 40 at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City, Ia. Indiana obviously did not want to risk a punt that could have been blocked and returned for a game-tying touchdown, so the Hoosiers had quarterback Fernando Mendoza run backward to run out the clock.

Mendoza only needed to go to about the Indiana 15, at which point he could have gone down with no time left on the clock. Instead, he went all the way to his own end zone for an intentional safety.

That did not impact the outcome of the game. However, Indiana was only favored by 6.5 points early in the week, a line many nabbed for bets or parlays. That safety prevented the Hoosiers from covering the spread.