Today was the day that Cameron had been waiting for since January - the start of the Big Ten Football season. For awhile this fall it didn't look as if football would be a possibility this year. The Big Ten presidents had voted against starting the season due to COVID cases around the country. After protests from parents and a lot of research they reversed their vote and Big Ten football was back on television this weekend.
Last night was a warm up to today's action as Wisconsin took on Illinois. The spread for the game was nineteen points and Cam let us know before the game started that he was beating the house on Illinois. Thankfully, he did not have the deed to our home or we would have been moving out at game's end. Cameron's first prediction for today was a better one as he chose Rutgers over Michigan State. None of us thought that was even possible but Rutgers easily won ending their twenty-one game Big Ten losing streak.
The most anticipated game of the day, at least in the Heinisch Home, started at 3:30 with IU hosting #8 ranked Penn State. We would have loved to have been at the game in person, but one of the many restrictions put in place by the Big Ten eliminated fans from the stands. Cameron was pretty high on IU's chances to win. Even though there had been a lot of hype about the Hoosiers over the past few weeks, the rest of us were very skeptical about their chances at victory. The errant fake punt of last year's game was still in our minds.
The game ended up being a lot better than we anticipated. IU led at half time and held that lead until the end of the third quarter. The two surprises that we noticed from the first 45 minutes of the game was the impressive play of IU's defense and the lackluster performance of their quarterback, Michael Pennix, Jr. He had been injured for most of last season, but was extremely impressive in the Michigan State game that we watched in East Lansing last fall. Whether it was nerves or as Cameron informed us from Twitter that Pennix's special powers had really been taken by the Space Jam monsters, either way, something was off.
All of that changed in the last two minutes of the game, however. IU down 21-20 let Penn State score quickly in the hope to get the ball back to even the score. It was a smart coaching move, but we weren't sure how IU's offense would perform under pressure. The Pennix of old returned and led the Hoosiers to a 28-28 tie at the end of regulation complete with a two point conversion. Penn State won the toss and scored in their first drive of overtime. Pennix made a fantastic pass to my favorite football Hoosier, Whop Philyor, who made an equally impressive catch to move the score to 34-35. Tom Allen called for the two point conversion once again in order to go for the win instead of the tie. We were all extremely nervous. As there was no one open in the endzone, Pennix decided to run. With a Penn State player on his tail he made a long dive for the endzone just touching the pylon before landing out of bounds. It took awhile for the referees to review the play, but in the end the call on the field stood and IU won. It was the first time that they had beaten a top ten opponent since 1987 - my freshmen year. Doug and Cam screams said it all.
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