Indiana’s Sudfeld recalls hit that stole his season

CHICAGO - Quarterback Nate Sudfeld recalls the play like it happened yesterday. He also remembers the pain, although that has faded over time.

Sudfeld's Indiana Hoosiers lined up third-and-15 from Iowa's 48-yard line last October. The Hawkeyes led 28-14 in a shootout early in the second quarter. Sudfeld dropped back with receivers flanked to both sides.

'I remember it was a dig concept, and I did a five-step drop. The pocket kind of collapsed,” Sudfeld said.

None of his other receivers in the backfield made it past the line of scrimmage. Iowa defensive tackle Carl Davis looped to his right, and defensive end Drew Ott swooped from Sudfeld's left. Sudfeld stepped up but in the middle, and the Iowa tandem converged on Sudfeld and crushed his left shoulder like an accordion.

'They grabbed me, I saw it, I was like, ‘Get down, I'm trying to get down,'” Sudfeld said. 'As one was taking me down, the other like hits me and both land on me on the shoulder. I just knew it wasn't good at the time. It was like a car crashing where you don't realize what just happened.

'‘All right I can't feel my left arm. I think I'm all right, though.' They you stand up and it's sliding around and you're like, ‘Eh, that's not right.'”

By the time Sudfeld reached the sideline, he knew it was rough. His season was over with a separated shoulder, and with it ended Indiana's hopes for a second bowl game since 1993. Just three weeks earlier, Sudfeld had engineered a 31-27 upset at eventual SEC East Division champ Missouri. Before his injury, Sudfeld completed 60.1 percent of his passes for 1,151 yards, six touchdowns and three interceptions. His replacement, Chris Covington, completed just 3 of 12 passes for 31 yards and two interceptions against Iowa before suffering a torn ACL. Indiana's third-team quarterback, Zander Diamont, threw just one touchdown pass and four interceptions in the Hoosiers' final six games.

Over the next three games, quick-trigger Indiana threw for a combined 103 yards. Sudfeld passed for more yards in each of his five games before the injury. He admitted he got sick from watching the hit on replay.

'It was tough feeling useless, feeling like going from having so much control in a game to having none,” Sudfeld said. 'You feel like as a quarterback that you can't play without me, it's like, ‘I have to be out there.' You get hurt and you're walking off the field and they whistle and keep going. ‘Whoa, I'm not on the field, you can't start.' It's just crazy. It's a big game.”

Indiana won just one more game to finish 4-8. But the Hoosiers showed fight in leading eventual national champion Ohio State well into the second half and falling to Penn State just 13-7.

'They had a choice to give up. The team didn't,” Indiana Coach Kevin Wilson said. 'It's a deeper team. It's a more exciting team. That's led to our best recruiting. That's led to an outstanding winter, spring, summer. Again, we're cranked and we're ready to get rolling.”

That's also good news for Sudfeld, whose statistics are sterling despite missing half his season. In Indiana's history, Sudfeld ranks second in completion percentage (60.6), fifth in passing touchdowns (34), eighth in passing yardage (4,306) and 10th in total offense (4,377) in just 25 career games (14 starts).

'I'm stoked for my senior year,” he said. 'There's been a new level of urgency, a new level of purpose this last year. So we're excited to get on the field and get gelling together and get after it.”

Sudfeld has the size (6-6, 240) and the arm to make football his mission in life. However, he's about much more than football. His grandfather started 'Assist International,” a humanitarian organization geared toward helping people in third-world countries gain access to clean water and medical supplies, improve educational opportunities and care for orphans. Ralph Sudfeld, Nate's father, is the organization's president, and Nate Sudfeld spent part of his summer in Uganda.

'I was in charge of keeping the kids entertained,” Sudfeld said, adding that he couldn't lift weights because of his shoulder. 'I played a lot of soccer with the kids. I teach them how to throw a football, which is pretty interesting. But then I get to sit in on meetings for planning and projects. A lot of drumming, that was a lot of fun. We had some of those girls, they'd come in dance for us, do these little tribal dances. They'd pull us out of our chairs and have us dance with them.”

The annual Big Ten luncheon reserves a prime spot for a student-athlete speaker. Sudfeld, twice an academic all-Big Ten member, received that honor this year.

'I will say this. I think that speaker is such a big deal,” Wilson said. 'And when (Michigan State quarterback) Kirk Cousins spoke a few years ago, I played it to our team. I said this is what Big Ten football is about. This is college football.”

Sudfeld's speech earned him a standing ovation. He highlighted the privileges of playing Big Ten football and giving back. Although he's always focused on making the world a better place, his injury makes him appreciate his sport.

'That's why it's such a precious game,” Sudfeld said. 'You never know what play's your last, so when you're having success and you're winning games, that's when it's all the better.”

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