BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) — No. 5 Indiana made the perfect fourth-down call Saturday in hopes of extending its two winning streaks.
An uncharacteristic footstep ruined it all.
As Hoosiers quarterback Josh Hoover lobbed the ball to the sprinting, wide-open Nick Marsh down the sideline for what appeared to be the go-ahead score with just more than a minute left to play, the sellout crowd roared and fireworks went off. Even No. 4 Ohio State thought Marsh and Hoover had done it again.
Instead, Marsh's left foot came down out of bounds before he secured the catch, making it an incompletion and allowing the Buckeyes to close out a 19-15 victory in the rematch of last year's Big Ten championship game.
:"They went with an all-out blitz, which we expected," two-time Associated Press Coach of the Year Curt Cignetti said. “Marsh really cooked that guy and Josh just couldn't quite make the throw. It's the kind of game we normally win. We just fell short.”
And just like that, Indiana's 22-game winning streak and 19-game home winning streak, which both were the longest active ones in the Football Bowl Subdivision, were history. Cignetti lost a home game for the first time in the three years since he's been in Bloomington, and it came in the first top five matchup ever played at Memorial Stadium.
But, as usual, none of that changed the demeanor of Cignetti or his players, and nobody was pointing fingers.
While Marsh did not speak with reporters afterward, Hoover blamed himself for what happened on a day he was just 20 of 40 for 296 yards with one touchdown and one lost fumble, his first turnover of the season.
“It's not Nick's fault at all, right?” Hoover said. “Like, if I put it a little bit further inside, it's an easy catch, right? Nick's an unbelievable player but the best thing about Nick is who he is as a guy. I'm glad he's my teammate. I know he's got my back, and I've got his back, too, and we're all going to go back and learn from this tape, try to get better every way we can and we're going to use this to fuel us going forward.”
Hoover also left for one play in the third quarter with what appeared to be a right arm injury, finished the drive by wincing through pain, then entered the medical tent. When he reemerged, Hoover gave Cignetti a thumbs-up and went back on the field where he nearly another remarkable comeback like the many that came over the past two seasons.
Last year, Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza found the speedy Elijah Sarrat to win at Iowa, responded to a late pick-6 at Oregon by immediately leading the Hoosiers to a tiebreaking score on the next drive and was bailed out by Omar Cooper Jr.'s incredible toe tap inside the white line for the winning score at Penn State.
It happened again last week when — who else? — Hoover and Marsh hooked up for two long TD passes to erase an 11-point deficit at Nebraska. And the Buckeyes (6-1, 4-0) thought they were about to become the next victim.
“I thought he caught it at first,” Buckeyes defensive back Jaylen McClain said. “But they called it incomplete, so I'll take it.”
Ohio State coach Ryan Day added: “When the ball was in the air, I started thinking about getting the 2-minute drill ready to go."
But this time, the Hoosiers' magical moment was replaced by stunned silence, heartbreak and for the first time since Nov. 23, 2024, when they also lost to the Buckeyes, a chance to rebound the next week.
“It was right there for the taking and we've got to be able to take that one,” Cignetti said. “We've still got to get ready for Michigan. It's still all ahead of us. We can still accomplish all of our goals — except going undefeated.”
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Indiana wide receiver Nick Marsh (11) reacts after realizing he stepped out-of-bounds before completing a catch in the end zone late in the second half of an NCAA college football game against Ohio State, Saturday, Oct. 17, 2026, in Bloomington, Ind. (AP Photo/Doug McSchooler)
