EVANSTON-Northwestern’s offense played its best game of the year against No. 23 Indiana on Saturday at Martin Stadium. But the Wildcat defense just had no answer for the No. 1 offense in the Big Ten.
Kurtis Rourke threw for 380 yards and three touchdowns as No. 23 Indiana remained undefeated with a 41-24 blitz of Northwestern. It was the second straight loss for the Wildcats, who dropped to 3-2 overall and 0-2 in the Big Ten.
Indiana’s offense, which came into the game scoring 48.8 points per game, shredded the Wildcats, who had been allowing just 251 yards and 15.8 points per game before running into a Crimson-and-Cream buzzsaw. The Hoosiers, who finished with 529 total yards, turned the ball over on downs on their first drive and punted on the second. Then, they ripped off seven straight scoring drives to put the game out of reach.
Quarterback Jack Lausch had his best full game as a Wildcat in his third career start, completing 23-of-38 passes for 243 yards, with two touchdowns and, maybe most importantly, no interceptions or fumbles. The Wildcats’ offense finished with an encouraging 336 yards, exactly triple their output against Washington two weeks ago.
Northwestern head coach David Braun was happy with Lausch’s performance but disappointed with a defense that couldn’t get any stops against Rourke and the RPO game. He cited missed communications and poor tackling as two of the biggest culprits.
Northwestern had its best chance of pulling off an upset early in the fourth quarter. Lausch completed a screen pass to AJ Henning, who made a couple tacklers miss and scored from two yards out to pull the Wildcats to within 27-24 with 11:10 left in the game.
Then, the Wildcat defense got a couple stops to force Indiana into a third-and-9 from their own 26. With the crowd roaring, Rourke threw a strike over the middle to Elijah Sarratt for 12 yards to move the chains. That turned out to be the only third down of the drive as the Hoosiers wound up scoring a touchdown on a one-yard Ty Lawton touchdown run to effectively put the game out of reach.
Northwestern’s defense actually got off to a strong start by turning the Hoosiers over on downs on their first drive of the game. Indiana faced a fourth-and-2 at the Wildcat 27 and elected to go for it. Rourke hit Miles Cross out of the backfield, but Mac Uihlein dropped him for a one-yard gain to give NU the ball.
The two teams traded punts from there until Indiana opened the scoring. Rourke carved up the Wildcats over the middle on RPOs, going 6-for-6 for 59 yards passing as the Hoosiers covered 89 yards in 10 plays and capped it off with a 5-yard Justice Ellison touchdown run. Those throws over the middle became a recurring theme throughout the day.
At the end of the first quarter, Indiana had just a 7-0 lead but had dominated play, outgaining the Wildcats 144-10 and coming one second short of doubling them up in time of possession.
But Northwestern’s sputtering offense found some rhythm in the second quarter and put together not one, but two consecutive scoring drives. The problem is Indiana did, as well.
The Wildcats mounted a 10-play, 53-yard touchdown drive to tie the game at 7 with Cam Porter’s 8-yard touchdown sprint to the corner. The big plays were an offsides penalty against Indiana’s D’Angelo Ponds on a fourth-and-2 at the IU 32 to give the Wildcats a first down; then Lausch hit Thomas Gordon in the seam on third-and-9 for a 16-yard gain to set up Porter’s scoring run.
The Hoosiers came right back and pushed their lead back to a touchdown when Rourke hit a wide-open Cross, who made a leaping catch in the back of the end zone for a 14-7 Hoosier lead.
Northwestern answered again. Joseph Himon II ignited the drive by turning the corner and gaining 35 yards down the west sideline on the first snap. Lausch hit Bryce Kirtz for 13 yards and ran for 12 more. The Wildcats reached the IU 14, where they settled for a 32-yard Jack Olsen field goal to make it 14-10 with 1:08 left in the half.
That was enough time for Indiana to get into scoring range after a twisting sideline catch by EJ Williams for 37 yards set them up in NU territory. Nicolas Radicic eventually came on to hit a 37-yard field goal and the Hoosiers took a 17-10 lead into the locker room at halftime.
Indiana captured its biggest lead of the day at 24-10 on its first possession of the second half after Rourke hit Ke’Shawn Williams for a touchdown. It was the Hoosiers’ fourth straight scoring drive, with three of them going for at least 75 yards.
The lead looked like it might hold for a Northwestern team that had yet to score more than 13 points in regulation against an FBS opponent. But Lausch took the Wildcats right back down the field. He hit Henning in the seam, and he did the rest for a 38-yard touchdown to make it a one-score game once again at 24-17 with 3:13 left in the third quarter.
Indiana’s offense, however, just kept rolling. Williams caught a short screen pass, broke several tackles and sprinted 52 yards to the NU 10-yard line. But Evan Smith came up with a PBU on a third -down pass into the end zone to limit Indiana to a chip-shot, 28-yard Radicic field goal.
Lausch and the Wildcats then caught a bit of a break. Scrambling to his left, Lausch floated a deep one that Bryce Kirtz somehow came down with among two Indiana defenders for a 47-yard completion to the IU 3. Kirtz was Lausch’s favorite target, catching 10 passes for 128 yards.
Four plays and one pass-interference penalty against Indiana later, Henning caught his touchdown pass to pull to within three with 11:10 left in the game.
But that was as close as the Wildcats would get as Indiana tacked on two more touchdowns to produce the final margin.
