IU football fell behind 17-6 in the fourth quarter on Saturday afternoon against Nebraska at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, but the Hoosiers responded.
A pair of touchdown passes from Josh Hoover to Nick Marsh in the final 12 minutes, combined with a stout defensive effort down the stretch, helped the Hoosiers rally for a 20-17 win.
Indiana is now 6-0 this season and has won 22 straight games overall. Here are five takeaways from the win against the Huskers:
The Hoosiers found a way to win a gut-check game
Even though Indiana survived a stiff test from a quality team in Week 4 against Northwestern, the national discourse over five weeks suggested the Hoosiers still hadn’t been tested this season.
That narrative took a hit on Saturday.
On an afternoon when it didn’t play its best game and Nebraska led by two scores with under 12 minutes to play, Indiana found a way to rally and win when an upset looked inevitable.
The Hoosiers made plays on both sides of the ball when it mattered most.
From Hoover’s two late touchdown passes to Marsh to timely defensive stops, Indiana won its sixth game to open the 2026 season and its 22nd straight overall, dating back to the start of the 2025 season.
“It’s a great win on the road, it was hard-fought,” IU head coach Curt Cignetti said postgame. “A win like that has a lot of value.”
Nick Marsh made a pair of explosive plays to complete IU’s comeback win
The production of Marsh, a transfer wide receiver from Michigan State, has been building in recent weeks.
Marsh had five catches for 52 yards and a touchdown against Northwestern in Week 4 and seven catches for 120 yards and a touchdown at Rutgers in Week 5.
He took his production to another level Saturday afternoon in Lincoln, making two game-changing plays for the Hoosiers.
The first, a 75-yard touchdown reception after Nebraska had taken a 17-6 lead, flipped the momentum when IU looked to be in serious trouble. A Memorial Stadium crowd that had been sent into a frenzy just minutes before was suddenly stunned.
And the second, a 44-yard touchdown reception on IU’s next possession, gave the Hoosiers the lead for good at 20-17.
The final tally for Marsh: six catches, 187 receiving yards and two touchdowns.
“He’s been trending that way for about the last three or four weeks,” Cignetti said postgame of Marsh. “We put a package in where we could utilize his skills a little bit more and I’ve seen the improvement about the last four weeks.
“And he made some big plays today and I’m happy for him and I’m happy for us. The kids really like him and they looked at him as a guy as a playmaker.”
Indiana’s defense made stops when it counted
It wasn’t a dominant afternoon for Indiana defensively.
The Hoosiers allowed Nebraska 391 yards of offense and struggled to get off the field for most of the game. Nebraska dominated time of possession, 39:33 to 20:27.
As the Huskers opened a two-score lead in the fourth quarter on a 39-yard touchdown run by Anthony Colandrea, it was fair to wonder whether the Hoosiers could get the stops needed to mount a comeback, even if the offense did awaken.
While Hoover’s touchdown passes to Marsh will justifiably grab headlines, the defense deserves credit for stopping the Huskers when it mattered most.
On Nebraska’s final four drives, the Hoosiers held the Huskers scoreless. Nebraska didn’t advance the ball beyond its own 45-yard line.
On Nebraska’s second-to-last drive, Tobi Osunsanmi sacked Colandrea on 4th and 10, leading to a loss of six and a turnover on downs that essentially clinched the win for the Hoosiers.
“We got them settled down at halftime and took a deep breath,” Cignetti said of his team’s defensive performance down the stretch. “Forgot the first half, except for the corrections and adjustments and committed to one play at a time. And I told them, I said good teams find a way to win a game like this at the end. That’s what I told them at halftime and that’s what we did.”
IU’s run game never materialized
A productive running game has been key to Indiana’s success under Cignetti and offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan.
The Hoosiers never got the run game going against the Huskers.
Nebraska was committed to stopping the run, limiting the Hoosiers to only 65 rushing yards. Turbo Richard had eight carries for 10 yards, and Lee Beebe Jr. had nine for 31.
Ultimately, Indiana overcame its struggles on the ground with timely plays from Hoover and Marsh late.
“Early on, it was obvious they were committed to stopping the run and a certain RPO,” Cignetti explained. “And we really never quite got the run game going. I thought we’d run the ball better than we did, but we’ll deal with that tomorrow in our evaluation of why.
“Probably they decided that they had to stop the run, number one, and do the best they could versus the pass. So at the end of the day, we won the one-on-one matchups in the pass game and made one more play than they did.”
The win keeps IU unbeaten ahead of next Saturday’s matchup against Ohio State
Indiana and Ohio State have Saturday’s matchup in Bloomington circled on the calendar.
The two programs met in last season’s Big Ten championship game in Indianapolis, with Indiana winning a 13-10 thriller.
The Buckeyes lost to Texas earlier in the season but are on track for a 3-0 start in Big Ten play if they finish off this afternoon’s game against Maryland.
Indiana is 3-0 in league play with wins against Northwestern, Nebraska and Rutgers. The season’s toughest stretch still awaits, beginning Saturday in Bloomington.
How big is Saturday’s game?
It could decide which program returns to the Big Ten championship game and it’s also the most anticipated game in Bloomington since the 1967 game against Purdue, when the Hoosiers beat the Boilermakers to win the Big Ten and reach the Rose Bowl.
