Indiana cannot repeat as national champions playing like this.
It could barely beat Minnesota at home playing like this.
You can’t trust a team when you can’t trust a quarterback. Indiana cannot trust Josh Hoover.
No. 4 Indiana somehow prevailed 23-16 in overtime behind backup quarterback Grant Wilson in a game the Hoosiers kept trying to lose.
Hoover’s shoulder doesn’t look 100%, but he was healthy enough to start. Whatever the case with his shoulder, he’s erratic enough that he didn’t finish this game.
How wacky did this one get? The teams traded 60-yard field goals in the final minute
of regulation, before Wilson tossed a game-winning touchdown pass to Charlie Becker on the first play of overtime.
Believe this: Hoover would’ve overthrown that pass. Indiana needs to see more of Wilson, the sixth-year senior who saved the day, alongside Indiana’s defense.
File this one alongside Northwestern, Nebraska and Michigan as games Indiana won ugly.
Actually, ugly is an understatement for this one. This was downright sloppy.
Down in the coal mine, the canary is developing black lung.
Indiana’s offensive warts aren’t healing, its special teams gaffes are glaring, and we might’ve just witnessed the moment when reality set in for Curt Cignetti.
He watched Hoover misfire on three straight passes, and then his punter shanked another kick, and the cameras panned to Cignetti, who wore a look of pure dissatisfaction.
Imagine his expression when Minnesota scored on the first play after the shanked punt by using a trick play.
On a day when a bundle of Indiana fans dressed up like their coach for Halloween, Cignetti watched a horror show unfold for his team.
Indiana survived the jump scare, but only just.
Hoover kept missing high and wide. He was bad. Punter Billy Gowers was worse, and the typically reliable Nico Radicic missed his first two field-goal attempts. Indiana botched another field-goal attempt when the holder couldn’t spot the ball.
Bad quarterback play, meet brutal special teams, until Paddy McAteer’s 60-yard kick split the uprights to force overtime.
Indiana’s defense delivered another beastly performance. That unit can’t take a single Saturday off, or the Hoosiers are going to suffer a second loss.
Indiana’s only touchdown through three quarters came after Byron Baldwin Jr.’s strip-sack set up the Hoosiers with golden field position.
You could call Cignetti’s quarterback change at halftime courageous. I call it a necessity.
He needed to see what Wilson could do for this offense.
Answer: Just enough.
Indiana needs to see more of Wilson before the postseason arrives. He played well enough in a tense situation that he merits serious consideration for the starting assignment when the Hoosiers host Southern Cal after an off week.
Cignetti must spend the next few weeks deciding which quarterback he trusts more. When he could trust Hoover no longer against Minnesota, Wilson stepped up, and Indiana won this messy affair, but it bared little resemblance to a championship team.
Down in the coal mine, the canary’s still standing, but he looks about to keel over.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network's senior national college football columnist. Listen to his podcast, "College Football Unfiltered." Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Indiana football can't be trusted. Not with Josh Hoover playing like this
