Photo by: Tony Vasquez
Lucas Oil Stadium- Indianapolis,IN
Indiana University beats Ball State University 34 to 24 as the college football season kicks off. Ball State “hosted” Indiana for their season opener and I say “hosted” because the game was held in Lucas Oil Stadium in Indy but all branding on the field was for Ball State so it served as a home game for the Cardinals. And the amount of fans seemed pretty even between the two teams.
The game got off to a slow start but IU scored a field goal to get on the board first. Ball State answered back with a field goal of their own. Late in the first quarter, IU’s Penix threw a bomb to WR Westbrook for a 75 yard touchdown. Hoosiers led at the end of the first quarter 10-3.
Ball State drove down the field quickly to start the second quarter and scored on a 1 yard run in a drive that lasted 90 seconds. Cardinals tied it up 10-10 with that score. Late in the second quarter the Hoosiers knocked down 2 field goals on consecutive drives and finished out the half with a 16-10 lead.
Hoosiers scored on the opening drive of the 2nd half with a 4 yard touchdown run by Stevie Scott. This score put Indiana University up 23 to 10 over Ball State. The next drive Ball State scored on a big play of their own with a 45 yard touchdown pass from QB Plitt to WR Fletcher. They closed the gap to just a touchdown with a score of 23-17. The rest of the 3rd quarter saw both teams struggle to move the ball.
Hoosiers drove it in for a 2 yard run by Scott for the score early in the 4th quarter which seemingly closed the game for the team, and then passed to get the 2 point conversion. Ball State wasn’t giving up and fought back to score on a 93 yard drive capped off with a 36 yard pass to Yo’Heinz to bring the score to 31-24. IU drove late in the 4th and knocked down another field goal to take the lead to 10 points. Ball State’s Plitt threw his 1st interception of the game with just over a minute left in the game and that sealed the Cardinals fate as they lost to the Hoosiers for the second year in a row with a final score of 34-24.
Indiana’s freshman quarterback Penix completed 24-40 passes with 2 picks, 1 touchdown and 326 yards. Hoosiers rushing game came from a committee of players including Stevie Scott and Michael Penix for a total of 148 yards on 33 plays.
Ball State’s Plitt went 26-41 with 1 pick and 2 touchdowns for a total of 298 yards. The team rushed for 100 yards on 40 plays.
Hoosiers host Eastern Illinois next week in Bloomington while the Cardinals host Fordham.
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