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Indiana’s offense was nowhere to be found in the first half Saturday against Northwestern. The second half was a completely different story. But the IU defense, the single biggest reason Indiana has had so little football success the past 20 years, had its most underwhelming performance of the season.
“I really like our team,” he said. “They believe in you. They look you in the eye. We didn't play well, but we kept coming. We had a chance. As bad as it was, we had a lot of fight and resolve. These kids believe in what we're doing.”
One of the constant critcisms against head coach Pat Fitzgerald is that his teams get too conservative with a nice lead. We saw that against the Syracuse Orange in the opener and Northwestern needed a late comeback to win that one. Today, the Hoosiers got it within 8 but Northwestern wouldn’t reliquish the lead any further and is now a perfect 5-0. With that let’s get right to the quick hits.
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After trading off snaps at quarterback with Trevor Siemian for most of the season, Colter morphed into a do-it-all player against Indiana, lining up in the slot and behind center, knifing his way through the Hoosier defense. The junior finished the game with 14 carries for 161 yards, nine catches for 131 yards and two yards passing on three attempts. Colter scored four touchdowns, all of which came on the ground.
"We finally decided to bring it out this week," said Colter, who ran for 161 yards and four touchdowns while lining up behind center and also caught nine passes from quarterback Trevor Siemian for 131 yards while split wide. "It's something we had planned for throughout the season. It worked pretty well. We had season-highs in a bunch of different categories on offense."
Siemian and Colter looked as if they had been playing pitch and catch all season despite Colter making his first reception Saturday. Five times in the first half alone Siemian threw to Colter on third down and each time Colter picked up the first down.
TV didn’t do it justice. Kain Colter’s amazing performance as the running QB and lethal WR performance was even better in person as NU needed an alltime record 704 yards of offense to stave off a pesky Indiana team.
The Northwestern Wildcats offense was humming, putting up 703 yards of total offense in a 44-29 win over the Indiana Hoosiers after scoring the game's first 27 points. Kain Colter had over 100 yards running and receiving.