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BLOOMINGTON – Indiana coach Bill Lynch likes to look at the season as one long contest, marking each three games as the end of one quarter.
If that’s the case, it will be interesting to see what halftime adjustments the Hoosiers make.
Indiana stumbled to the halfway point, getting thumped by Virginia 47-7 Saturday. After opening the year with three consecutive wins, IU has lost three in a row.
“This could be a very good football team,” Lynch said during his weekly news conference Tuesday at Memorial Stadium. “We played poorly on Saturday. There is no denying that. But that happens. I don’t like it; don’t want it to happen again, but it happens. You deal with it, and you move on.”
The next two weeks – home Saturday against Illinois and at Northwestern on Oct. 24 – could be a make-or-break point for the Hoosiers.
“Coming out of halftime we need to step it up a lot. From here on out, there are no walks in the park,” said senior running back Bryan Payton, a Concordia product.
“Every team is going to be tough. These next three games (including Oct. 31 at Iowa) will probably tell our fate for postseason play and for what kind of team we are. We haven’t really faced adversity up until those losses, now we will tell what kind of team we are.”
The Hoosiers’ final three games will be home against Wisconsin (Nov. 7), at Penn State (Nov. 14) and home against Purdue (Nov. 21).
“Coach said we have a lot of football left to play and I agree with him 100 percent,” senior linebacker Matt Mayberry said. “We have six football games left, and we are going to play to our best ability in those games.”
Lynch said the team will have to improve upon fundamentals, including tackling, to avoid another performance like giving up 536 total yards against the Cavaliers. Several defensive starters missed practice time last week because of the flu. IU didn’t use it as an excuse.
“We lost focus the last couple of weeks,” senior defensive end Jammie Kirlew said. “… We were not on top of it. That’s something we cannot allow. Ever.”
The Hoosiers have given up 80 points in the last two weeks. In the three wins, IU surrendered an average of 17.7 points. The Hoosiers have given up an average of 38.7 points in the losses.
“I use this term with the staff, we are all disappointed, we are not discouraged,” Lynch said. “There’s too much left. The first quarter we were 3-0, we got beat soundly in the second quarter. We had a bad second quarter. That’s what it is.
“We have a whole half to go. We can sit around feeling sorry for ourselves or take the other approach and say we’re going to get back to playing our football.”
Note: Payton, Mike Reiter, Will Patterson and Kirlew have been named captains for the Illinois game.
