My two cents: It's OK to 'flush' Ohio State blowout, but be sure lessons are learned

Adversity has arrived, so Indiana has to find a way to go forward, learning from its mistakes and getting better as a team.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. —The current version of Indiana football can't do anything about the program's historically horrific past. No major-college program has lost more games, and there have been a lot of Saturdays that ended with blowout losses. A whole lot.

As this program tries to turn the corner under third-year coach Tom Allen, things are clearly better. Recruiting has improved, the talent of the coaching staff is better and there is hope for better things down the road.

So when something like Saturday happens — a 51-10 blowout loss at home against Ohio State that deflated all the air out of that "let's shock the world''  balloon — the biggest question is what happens next. 

It's a very big question.

The "coach-speak'' around this program is to "have a 1-0 mentality.'' That means win the moment at hand — that drill, that practice, that play — and then move on and have a 1-0 mentality again on the next play. It's a nice concept, because you can't do anything about the past. It's all about the now, and what comes next. 

So things can't fester. They just can't.

"You can't let Ohio State beat you twice,'' Indiana coach Tom Allen said. "You have something like this happen and not allowing it to linger and one loss affecting how you perform the next week, it just cannot happen. The coaching staff, that's the message that we send to our guys — and we have to live that out ourselves, I have to flush it as well.

"I was pretty ticked off as I came in on Sunday. I watched the film Saturday night and was just not happy at all. The edge that that creates in you, to me, I don't want that to ever go away because those things, they bother you when you invest so much and you work so hard and you have an expectation. Regardless of what happens on game day, you've got to go play again next week.''

Forgetting about it and moving on is one thing, but what's also imperative from going through a game like this is that you have to learn from your mistakes. It's OK to make mistakes in life as long as you learn from them and don't repeat them. That's what hangs over these Hoosiers now as they face Connecticut this Saturday (Noon ET at Memorial Stadium) and eight straight Big Ten games to follow.

They need to learn that they can't have bad practices — or parts of practices — during an important game week, which a few players admitted to, both on Saturday and media availability earlier in the week. 

They need to learn that whatever success they do achieve won't repeat itself on its own, that more hard work is required. Overconfidence cannot be an emotion with this team. Hearing that from some players on Saturday was very disappointing.

They vow to fix that.

"Focus was the main thing. You could see it in some practices during the week where we weren't at our best,'' senior defensive lineman Allen Stallings said. "It doesn't matter who you're playing, whether it's Ohio State or a Division 2 team or whatever. You have to be ready every week.

"We recognized we weren't locked in and we need to get that fixed. It's really not that easy to flush all that, because we didn't play to our potential. It's hard to flush it, but we really don't have a choice because we have a really good team coming every week now.''

Thankfully, IU's schedule does set up well for them. Connecticut comes to town Saturday and the Hoosiers, even with questions about the status of starting quarterback Michael Penix Jr., are whopping 28-point favorites. They should — repeat, should — be able to go out this Saturday, with the Ohio State loss flushed, and play well and post a big victory.

Then a huge road trip comes a week from now at Michigan State, a team Indiana needs to beat if they want to start making inroads in the Big Ten East.

Adversity has arrived, so what are they going to do about it?

"Part of having grit is when adversity comes when you play against a good football team, you have to decide that enough is enough,'' Indiana defensive coordinator Kane Womack said. "When you walk out on that field, you have do decide that you're going to out and do your job and execute at a very high level. That's not what we did enough in that game. 

"Credit Ohio State. I'm not taking anything away from them because they are a very good team. But If I'm a linebacker, enough is enough. I'm going lock in and to do my job for that one play and lock in and do it again on the next play. If Im a defensive tackle, enough is enough, and I'm going to go lock in and do my job. If I'm a corner, I'm going to lock in. Coaches, too. We wanted to play Ohio State and beat them, and we didn't get that done. How we respond to this adversity when we know we're capable of so much more, that's the thing. Enough is enough. We've got to execute and go do our job on the field. We've got to be proud of the way we compete every single day.''

This Indiana team is at a crossroads, because yesterday truly does not matter with what you're trying to accomplish today — and tomorrow. But you need to learn from yesterday or, in football parlance, your last Saturday.

Have they? We'll see. We'll see a little bit this week, and see a little more next week.

It's all about the journey. And it's not always easy.