Ohio State had a 19-7 lead over Indiana in the fourth quarter after Jeremiah Smith’s 38-yard touchdown. But the Hoosiers weren’t going down quietly. Curt Cignetti’s team cut the deficit to 19-15, putting Ryan Day under pressure to protect the Buckeyes’ lead. And just when Ohio State needed its offense to finish the job, things got worse. The Buckeyes were about to pay a much higher price than a blown lead.
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Julian Sayin was already having his worst game of the season, missing receivers, holding the ball too long, and throwing two interceptions. Indiana had sacked him three times before a fourth-quarter breakdown made matters worse. Offensive lineman Phillip Daniels failed to stop a defender coming off the right edge, leaving Sayin exposed. The quarterback took a hit and fumbled, although Daniels recovered the ball. But Sayin remained on the ground, clutching his arm in pain, turning Ohio State’s narrow victory into a major injury concern for Day.
He did return to the field, but with a sling around his arm on the sidelines. Ryan Day has now confirmed that he will be out for several weeks, which means that Luke Fahey might be the next starter at quarterback.
“You know, I don’t have a ton of details, but he’ll probably be out for several weeks,” Day stated. “So, you know, we’ll have to come up with a plan there.”
OSU’s backup quarterback, Luke Fahey, took his position on the field with just a few minutes left in the game. While he saw limited snaps, he was seen panicking most of the time, which was not a nice look for a QB who might need to handle the rest of the conference stretch ahead. For this season, he has thrown only 9 passes for 203 yards, with two touchdowns and two interceptions. Even Coach Day saw that he was struggling.
“Tough spot for him to come into. I think it was moving fast for him there,” Day said during the postgame conference.
But the Indiana defense was ferocious, as Sayin was also producing poor numbers during the time he was out there on the field. He completed only 15 of his 29 passes for 235 yards and 2 touchdowns, to go along with his two interceptions. Before this game, he had two interceptions for the whole season while completing 71.2% of his passes.
First dent in Indiana’s winning streak since last season
The Buckeyes finally snapped Indiana’s 22-game winning streak. There were other streaks broken as well. Cignetti got his first home loss at Bloomington in his three seasons as head coach of the Hoosiers.
Before this game, Indiana had lost possession of the ball only once through a turnover during the entire season. However, as the Hoosiers began the second half, they committed a turnover on each of their first two offensive drives.
Davion Chandler fumbled first when Indiana could have gotten a good position to score; however, it ended with the Buckeyes taking the ball away. Josh Hoover was sacked on their second drive, resulting in another fumble. Ironically, before the game, Curt Cignetti was happy to be playing on home turf.
“I’m glad we’re playing them at home,” Cignetti said this week. “We really need our crowd to be loud and very involved. We have to give them reasons to be. It’s just a football game, but I’m glad it’s at home.”
However, Cignetti wouldn’t have expected Indiana to play this poorly at home. His players were making mistakes, which they had never made during the season. Indiana’s kicker, Nico Radicic, has kicked 36 field goals out of 39 attempts throughout his career. However, he missed two field goals against the Buckeyes. He missed a routine 32-yard kick in the first half and then a 55-yard kick in the second half. Two of Ohio’s TDs came after these missed goals.
Josh Hoover almost won the game back for Indiana, though. Despite being down double digits in the fourth, he was able to respond with a 19-yard score to Nick Marsh, along with a two-point conversion to Turbo Richard. During their last drive of the game, Hoover again found Marsh in the end zone on a fourth-and-4 from the Buckeyes’ 27-yard line. Replay review had to take away the score after it was found that Marsh’s foot was out of bounds.
Even though Ohio State managed to get the win, it was bittersweet. They do have a bye week before having to face Lincoln Riley and Dan Lanning. But with Sayin out of the picture, can Ryan Day’s backup quarterbacks take this program to the playoffs?