The Buckeyes were up 19-7 in the fourth quarter after a 38-yard touchdown by Jeremiah Smith. Although Ryan Day was somehow able to hold on to this lead against Cignetti and the Hoosiers, his starting QB is now a casualty of this hard-fought win.
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Julian Sayin played his worst game of the season against the Hoosiers. His usual accuracy and poise were not to be seen as he was missing his receivers and holding on to the ball for too long. Indiana’s defense forced two turnovers and sacked Sayin four times. The last sack took him out of the game, and possibly the near future as well.
As the fourth quarter continued, the Hoosiers were able to claw their way back to make the score 19-15 after trailing by 12 points. During an offensive possession from the Buckeyes, OL Phillip Daniels failed to block a defender approaching from the right side during a passing attempt. Sayin got hit and fumbled the ball. Daniels was able to recover it for Ohio State, preventing another turnover. But Sayin was not getting up from the ground as the cameras caught him clutching his arm in pain.
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 post-game 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 season 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 endzone 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?