Winning is supposed to buy you the benefit of the doubt, and Indiana has been doing plenty of it this season with 4-0. However, on a FOX panel, that credit only stretched so far before Urban Meyer decided the Hoosiers still had homework to do.
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Ahead of the Big Ten Week 4 games on Saturday, Meyer was asked about the team to beat in the Big Ten right now, with Ohio State sitting on a rare five-year title drought (Big Ten) and Michigan owning one of the conference’s last three championships. Meyer went with Ohio State, but the reasoning behind the pick told more of the story than the pick itself.
“Yeah, they [Indiana] scored 100, 45 on Northwestern, but you know what, they still don’t know their weaknesses,” said Meyer on CFB on Fox. “Last night, some of the weaknesses showed up because they played Northwestern, a better Northwestern, but Indiana’s got a long way to go. They struggled last night.”
On the Ohio State side of his answer, Meyer explained the pick came with its own caveat. “Well, it’s got to be Ohio State or Indiana, and of course I’m gonna go with the Ohio State Buckeyes,” he said.
“But here’s the thing about Ohio State, we got to remember, with all the players going to the NFL the last few years, they have 60 new players on this roster. Never been done before here at Ohio State. So the best version of the Buckeye team is still yet to come as they mature.”
Meyer wasn’t exaggerating about Indiana, as the Hoosiers needed a fourth-quarter escape act just to survive Northwestern 29-23, a game that looked nothing like a defending champion cruising.
With starter Turbo Richard sidelined by a lower-leg injury, backup Lee Beebe Jr. carried the offense, running 24 times for 203 yards and setting up the winning score with a 70-yard burst inside the final two minutes.
Northwestern actually had a shot to tie it in the fourth quarter, cutting the deficit to 15-13 before a failed two-point try, and later pulling within two points again before Beebe’s late runs put it away.
And even in the last minute of the game, the Wildcats drove to Indiana’s 24-yard line and kicked a field goal to make it a one-score game. Northwestern was about to recover the kickoff.
Wildcats coach David Braun didn’t hide his frustration afterward, saying his team “beat ourselves” in a game he felt they should have won. That’s the version of Indiana Meyer was reacting to, not the one that blew out North Texas, Howard and Western Kentucky by a combined margin that made those results nearly meaningless as evidence.
Indiana’s offense actually stalled out for most of the first half, sitting on just a 12-0 lead even though the defense held Northwestern to 51 total yards and minus-5 rushing. But Northwestern found another gear after halftime, and that’s exactly when the weaknesses Meyer flagged started showing up.
Earlier in September, previewing Indiana’s opener, Urban Meyer framed defending a national title as one of the hardest jobs in the sport. He noted that only Alabama and Georgia had managed it in the last three decades, and pointed to his own failed repeat bids at Florida and Ohio State as proof of how rare it is.
Indiana won’t have long to sit with the assessment as the Hoosiers travel to winless Rutgers next Saturday for their first true road test of the season, while Ohio State, the team Meyer still ranks above them, heads to Iowa the same weekend in a game that will help shape the conference picture well before the two teams meet on October 17 in Bloomington.