Indiana Survives Minnesota in OT After Trading 60-Yard Bombs at the End of Regulation in One of the Finishes of the Year

How in the world did Indiana win this football game?

With about a minute left, Curt Cignetti insanely opted to not take a timeout and let Minnesota drain the clock all the way down to 24 seconds before nailing a 60-yard field goal. But the Hoosiers somehow got a chunk play to Charlie Becker — followed by another clock blunder by Cignetti, who thought Becker got out of bounds when he didn't — to get a shot at a 60-yarder of their own and made it as time expired to get to overtime. I don't ever recall two college kickers trading 60-yarders at any point in a game, let alone within 20 seconds of each other to end a game.

And that momentum from the end of regulation was all IU needed, as it scored on its first play with another strike to Becker and then stopped the Gophers on 4th and goal to end it.

Advertisement

Indiana might be the most fascinating team in college football this year. It's 8-1 with a last-second loss to Ohio State but seems to be taken to the brink every week. You'd think the Hoosiers will take care of USC, Washington and Purdue to end the regular season, but this team somehow finds itself in a dogfight regardless of opponent. Cignetti also benched quarterback Josh Hoover in favor of Grant Wilson to finsih this game, so that's a situation to monitor going forward, as well.

They're not making it easy on themselves, but they just keep winning.