BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - With two weeks to prepare and get healthy, No. 10 Nebraska responded with arguably its worst overall performance of the season against unranked Indiana on Saturday afternoon.
All that really mattered, however, was that the Huskers played just well enough to stay perfect.
With the help of a huge 72-yard fourth-quarter touchdown pass from Tommy Armstrong to Stanley Morgan, NU was able to overcome an otherwise rough offensive day and hold off the Hoosiers for a 27-22 victory and improve to 6-0 on the season.
Nebraska struck first on the opening possession of the game on a season-long 40-yard field goal by Drew Brown.
After cornerback Chris Jones broke up a fourth-down pass to force a turnover on downs by Indiana on the following drive, senior wide out Brandon Reilly came up with a ridiculous 45-yard juggling catch to move the ball into Hoosier territory.
A 17-yard catch by walk-on Bryan Reimers led to a four-yard touchdown run by senior running back Terrell Newby, increasing the Huskers lead to 10-0 with 4:47 left in the first quarter.
It took one play on Indiana’s ensuing possession to bump that lead up to 17, as Jones came up big again with a 38-yard pick-six off IU quarterback Richard Lagow.
That score held into the second quarter, but when an IU punt pinned Nebraska at its own 4, the Hoosiers blocked Caleb Lightbourn’s punt out of the back of the end zone for a safety with 12:29 left in the half.
Indiana then marched all the way down the Nebraska 6 on the ensuing drive, but the Hoosiers’ red zone struggles reared their head and they had to settle for a 36-yard field goal by Griffin Oaks to make it 17-5.
Nebraska got the ball back with just over 2 minutes to go, but gave it right back on a tipped interception by Jonathan Crawford, who returned it to the NU 28. The Hoosiers quickly went three-and-out, but Oaks connected on a 45-yard field goal to cut the deficit to 17-8 going into halftime.
With Indiana’s eight points in the second quarter, the Huskers have now been outscored 57-37 in the second quarter this season, the only quarter in which they’ve been outscored.
The teams would trade four punts to start the third quarter, but after Nebraska seemed to get some momentum after a fourth-down stop, Indiana took it right back by forcing NU to punt and getting a 39-yard return by Mitchell Paige down to the Husker 33.
On the final play of the third quarter, Hoosier running back Devine Redding took a fake reverse around the right end 33 yards for a touchdown, making it just 17-15 going into the start of the fourth.
Desperately needing a big play of any kind, Armstrong and Morgan provided just that with by connecting on a 72-yard touchdown with just under 10 minutes left to play. But the spark wouldn’t last long.
Indiana answered right back with four-yard touchdown pass from Lagow to Redding that capped off a 75-yard drive that lasted just 1:31 to get it back to 24-22 with 8:26 still left to play.
Nebraska stuck with a heavy dose of the ground game on its next drive and marched the ball into Hoosier territory. The drive was kept alive when Armstrong converted a fourth-and-1 at midfield on a one-yard sneak with four minutes left to play.
The Huskers caught another big break when Newby appeared to have fumbled after a 14-yard run to the IU 20, but he was ruled down before the ball came loose.
Indiana used its final two timeouts and then stopped Nebraska on third down, and Brown connected on a 39-yard field goal with 45 seconds remaining to go up 27-22.
Nebraska will return to action next week when it plays host to Purdue for a 2:30 p.m. kick on either ABC or ESPN2.
