BLOOMINGTON — In the movies, Josh Henderson would have landed clean on his goal-line burst, then sprung to his feet waving the football in the air, a grin splashed across his face.

In real life Saturday afternoon at Lucas Oil Stadium, the Indiana University fullback was halted in mid-plunge, stopped short of paydirt, the brutal reality of the cliché that football is a game of inches, or maybe millimeters. intervening

When IU didn’t score to tie Louisville on fourth and about one-and-half feet, the result was solidified with a defeat, 21-14, to the Cardinals. Louisville withstood a story-line comeback,

Will the loss haunt the Hoosiers the rest of the season? Frustrating. Disappointing. Demoralizing. Open the Thesaurus to read all about how it is that the Big Ten’s IU is 1-2 and not 2-1.

This was a sort-of neutral-site game versus nearby Louisville U. (3-0) of the Atlantic Coast Conference (everybody backing both teams wore red).

IU played a clunker of a first half, falling behind 21-0, then came within this single play and a couple of minutes of the clock running out in the fourth quarter from rallying to tie.

It’s always that way for IU, isn’t it, the Hoosiers coming so close, teasing fans’ hopes to the heights, then like that other famous football player, Charlie Brown in “Peanuts,” watching the ball grabbed away by Lucy at the last second?

The Cardinals, now coached by Jeff Brohm, the recent former Purdue rival leader, owned the first half. Quarterback Jack Plummer, who couldn’t win the first-string job for the Boilermakers, took a detour to Cal, and then reunited with Brohm in Kentucky, was a poised operator of the offense and his receivers were burning the Hoosier secondary.

Plummer threw for 238 yards and a touchdown. The week before, the Indiana defense held Indiana State to fewer than 100 yards total offense. This time, the Cardinals had a territorial advantage of roughly 300-to-100 before the Hoosiers responded.

This was the official appearance of sophomore Tayven Jackson as No. 1 quarterback for IU after he and Brendan Sorsby battled over the position for months and alternated in the opening two games.

The 6-foot-3, 215 Jackson went all of the way, completing 24 of 34 passes for 299 yards and a touchdown. Sorsby was so invisible he might as well have transferred, which is what players do these days if they are held out of a game.

IU’s biggest problem, despite Jackson’s excellence and the defense’s revived second half, was playing just 30 minutes of football when 60 minutes was needed.

“You’ve got to play two halves of football,” said IU coach Tom Allen, who did like the comeback mentality and Jackson’s showing. “I’m proud of our team’s fight. You could see him grow up throughout. He’s got a lot of moxie.”

Jackson completed passes to eight Hoosiers, 10 of them to back Jaylin Lucas, and three, including a game-long 41-yarder to Cam Camper.

“This is the beginning,” Lucas said of how IU’s offense will keep getting better.

In the locker room at half-time, the mood was serious, intense, or quiet, depending on which player was interpreting the atmosphere. Allen was waiting on that offense. To jump-start it he called for a surprise on-side kick that Indiana recovered and helped set an energetic second-half tone.

“That was a great call by coach,” said Jackson, who didn’t know the play was coming. “Once we started playing fast, I’m used to that. When you play fast, you play free.”

Hope and optimism stemmed from Jackson’s showing, a feeling that as he can become a flashy, yet reliable leader to help make good things happen on offense.

And yet, that darned failed goal-line play squashed what could have been a comeback to remember. There was no reason not to trust Henderson with the ball going for the six points, though some might have suggested IU choose Jackson on a sneak, or a roll-out, or some other X or O altogether.

“It didn’t work,” Allen said, “so obviously we should have done something else. You’ve got to knock them off the ball.”

Next for IU is a Saturday night game in Bloomington against Akron. Although this meeting with Louisville made logical geographic sense, there will be no rematch in Seymour (64 miles from Louisville, 56 miles from IU), or anywhere else any time soon. The schools were going to keep on visiting, but Allen said the recently announced expansion of the Big Ten put the kibosh on that plan.

There is enough for IU and Allen to worry about right now. Which are the real Hoosiers, the first-half version, or the second-half version?