Northwestern's Second-Half Rally Falls Short in 29-23 Loss at Indiana

Aidan Chiles threw for 293 yards and two touchdowns and Luke Dehnicke piled up 140 receiving yards, but injuries at cornerback cost the Wildcats in Bloomington.

Northwestern pushed reigning national champion Indiana to the final whistle before falling 29-23 on Friday night, Sept. 25, at Memorial Stadium in Bloomington. The game, the Big Ten home opener for the Hoosiers, aired on FOX. The Wildcats arrived as 21-point underdogs, and few expected them to keep it close.

The first half backed up that forecast. Northwestern's running backs finished the opening two quarters with negative yardage, and the Wildcats trailed by two scores for the game's first 39 minutes. They returned to the field with a different edge after halftime, working their way back into the game and reaching an early fourth-quarter two-point try that would have knotted the score at 15. The attempt failed, and Curt Cignetti's Hoosiers held on until Lee Beebe Jr. converted a third-and-one run that produced the game's final first down.

The ground game never got going. Against one of the top defensive fronts in college football, Northwestern managed 32 rushing yards on 1.2 yards per carry. That flipped the formula from the signature win of the David Braun era, last season's road upset of Penn State at Beaver Stadium, when Preston Stone threw for only 163 yards and Caleb Komolafe and Joseph Himon closed things out behind a strong offensive line. Komolafe's red-zone touchdown put the Wildcats ahead by a point, and he and Himon combined for two first downs to run out the clock on the final drive.

In Bloomington, the passing attack carried the offense instead. Michigan State transfer Aidan Chiles completed 22 of 29 passes for 293 yards and two touchdowns without committing a turnover. After a slow start, he connected on 17 of his final 20 throws, excluding a clock-stopping spike, and added a 7-yard touchdown scramble. His yardage total and 89.1 quarterback rating were career-best marks against top-25 opponents.

His receivers delivered alongside him. Tight end Luke Dehnicke, a redshirt sophomore from Minnesota Duluth, led the Wildcats with seven catches for 140 yards, finding openings in short-yardage situations and beating the Hoosiers downfield for chunk plays. Senior Griffin Wilde caught six passes for 56 yards and two touchdowns, his best numbers against a ranked opponent despite facing some of the stingiest coverage in the Big Ten.

The comeback was undercut by problems at cornerback. Northwestern was already without starting defensive back Braden Turner, who intercepted a pass and recovered a fumble in last season's GameAbove Sports Bowl rout of Central Michigan. Josh Fussell, a 2025 All-Big Ten honorable mention, went down with a first-quarter injury and did not return, and the replacement cornerbacks struggled against Indiana's offense both on the ground and through the air.

Ore Adeyi was targeted repeatedly, giving up 52 yards on the Hoosiers' first touchdown drive alone, 37 receiving yards plus a 15-yard pass-interference penalty. He later missed a backfield tackle on Beebe's third-and-one run that let Indiana finish the game. Montae Pate, a 6-foot-2 Weber State transfer, bit on a play-action fake as Nick Marsh caught Indiana's lone first-half touchdown in the back of the end zone, and a late run-defense lapse by Pate sprang Beebe free down the sideline.

Northwestern headed back to Evanston with a loss, though the report noted that the second-half fight against the reigning national champions left the program with renewed belief in its direction.