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My Two Cents: That Onside Kick Simply Can't Happen

Indiana watched its 13-point lead disappear in less than a minute in the Gator Bowl, and huge special teams miscues had a lot to do with it.
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JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — One of the oldest unwritten rules in football is that you get 24 hours to celebrate a win or mope about a loss, and then you move on. That's simply not going to be possible for Indiana, though.

Not the way Indiana lost Thursday night's TaxSlayer Gator Bowl to Tennessee. The Hoosiers had the game won against Tennessee, and it was all over but the shouting. A record-tying ninth win was there for the taking. 

And then, just like that, it wasn't.

Indiana lost 23-22, and that's the score they'll have to live with forever. It's a shame too, because it didn't have to play out that way. It wasn't simply getting beat that hurt so bad. It was worse than that.

It was a coaching decision —or lack thereof — that directly led to the loss, and that's really hard to say. Indiana's dream season could have had a great ending, but instead it's all daggers. 

Indiana got beat in large part because they didn't cover an onside kick in the final four-plus minutes of the game. That in itself is bad, but what makes it worse is that Indiana didn't even plan for it, and then got burned. That's on Indiana's coaching staff.

Let's quickly re-set the stage. Indiana had played great for 28 minutes and had built a 22-9 lead against the SEC blue blood. The Volunteers finally got its offense going after being held to 48 yards in four straight possessions and scored a touchdown with 4:21 remaining to pull within 22-16. 

Those two numbers seem obvious. Down six. Period. Only 4 minutes and change to go. Period.

Tennessee tried an onside kick, dribbling a little kick up the middle, and covering the ball after it went 10 yards — or close to that. The Volunteers took over, and scored three plays later. There were a few back and forths after that, but that was basically the game.

Indiana DID NOT have its hands team out on the field for the kick. There was NO huddle prior to the kick to review staying up on the line to cover a potential onside kick attempt. At the whistle, Indiana's front line guys were backpedaling, getting prepared to block for a kickoff return — one that never occurred, of course.

Simply, Indiana got fooled. They didn't prepare for the attempt.

And that, in itself, is shocking.

"We didn't (have the hands team on the field). We talked about it,'' Indiana coach Tom Allen said. "They obviously didn't show an onside kick formation, just did it from the normal look. We could have — and probably should have — and that's our fault.''

That's for sure.

"But we went over it on the sideline that they would do a possible middle dribble, but it's 4:20 to go in the game, down by six. Their defense had played well enough to where, it wasn't like you say, hey, this is just an automatic situation. But we did discuss it. Hindsight is 20/20, and you wish you would have had them out there.''

That's what I don't get, and that's the hardest thing to swallow. You expect the best and prepare for the worst. This wasn't getting fooled in the middle of the second quarter on a trick play. There were only four minutes left! 

You have to take that option away first — or at the very least have the right personnel group out there to make a play. This was, without question, an end-of-game situation.

And Indiana didn't do that.

Here's how obvious the situation was to most people. During the postgame celebration, Tennessee coach Jeremy Pruitt was asked, "What went into the decision to decide to go for the onsides kick?"

His answer was simple.

"We were down a score.''

The attempt certainly made sense because Tennessee had just wrested momentum back after not doing anything the entire second half on either side of the ball. There was life, so they fired away. Pruitt didn't know the numbers — teams that were down by 13 points or more with less than 5 minutes to go had lost 471 straight games this season — but the onside kick was certainly a risk worth taking.

And, for Tennessee, it paid off. 

It's so easy to say "Same Old Indiana,'' because of the school's horrific football legacy, but I won't go there. This is not a tradition loss. It's an in-the-moment loss, which is why it will hurt so much, especially for Indiana's seniors, who had to lose that way in their final game for Indiana.

That's now five straight bowl losses for Indiana. They haven't won a bowl game since 1991, the longest streak in Power 5. So, yes, it's still all about finishing.

Indiana learned a lot this year when it came to closing games out. They got better at it. They were primed to do it again Thursday night, and they let it slip away.

In the big picture, 8-5 is still a good season. But what really hurts is that 9-4 would have been something special. Indiana has to live with not beating a team all year with a winning record. Tennessee would have been the first.

And it was there for the talking, with a primetime national TV audience tuned in, no less. 

Allen said afterward that the loss didn't diminish everything that this team accomplished  this season. It doesn't of course, but what it did was take away FURTHER accomplishments  this season. A ninth win, a bowl win, an SEC scalp, that all would have been so much more, in the moment and going forward.

Instead, this special teams blunder, along with a missed extra point by Logan Justus in the third quarter, would up being costly. Justus also missed a last-minute desperation 52-yard field goal attempt that would have won it.

"Yeah, the missed extra point, good grief. How often does that happen with a guy who's an all-Big Ten kicker?'' Allen said. "The snap was good, hold was good. He just missed it. And then the missed field goal was a tough one, as well. 

"But the surprise onside kick, that's a tough one to swallow. We've got to execute that. Guys just didn't react. That's my fault. We didn't get it done right. That's a big, big mistake on our part.''

It sure is. And they'll have to live with it.

"I'm not going to point fingers and blame," Allen said. "At the end of the day, it's my responsibility for us to find a way to win. 

"We didn't do that, but it doesn't take away from what this team has accomplished, and all the things that haven't been done in a long time."

No, no it doesn't. What they accomplished this year was great. But what will hurt for a long while is what they DIDN'T accomplish on Thursday night. It all adds up, but this bowl game, sadly, has to be a subtraction.