Indiana’s season isn’t yet lost, but it sits on the verge.

As they head into their bye week, the Hoosiers will try to find out answers to why they’ve not been able to break a losing streak that’s now reached 5 games, with the latest being the 24-17 loss Saturday at Rutgers. Much of the failure this season falls on 6th-year coach Tom Allen, who has overseen IU’s stone-like drop from Big Ten darling of the shortened 2020 season to a team that only 2 years later seems destined for a last-place finish in the league’s East Division.

Nothing is safe, nor should it be. Indiana’s not been able to play a full 60-minute football game all season, even in the 3 games that it won to start the season, and especially in the last 5 weeks. Once the level of competition increased, starting with Cincinnati and continuing into the restart of Big Ten play, the problems have become even more acute.

Yet again on Saturday, IU played only one good half of football, then the rest was a gigantic mess. On this Saturday, it was the 1st 30 minutes, when the Hoosiers raced out to a 14-7 halftime lead. But the offense was simply atrocious in the 3rd quarter — frankly, even that might not be a harsh enough descriptor — as IU totaled minus-2 yards of offense, all of which came on a Connor Bazelak rush. Otherwise, Bazelak missed on all 5 of his passing attempts, as Indiana held the ball for only 1:15 of the 3rd.

Yikes.

Allen would say that it’s not time to hit the panic button — no coach would ever admit it is time — but let’s look at the facts: Indiana has lost its last 13 games not held in the month of September, dating back to the finale against Wisconsin at the end of the now-seemingly-miraculous 2020 season. After 2021, when IU was winless in the Big Ten and lost its last 8 games, Allen fired his offensive coordinator. He canned the offensive line coach a few weeks ago. And he’s had 3 defensive coordinators in the last 3 seasons, as he’s tried to take on more responsibility there, like he did early in his coaching tenure in Bloomington.

Nothing has worked to better the program.

After Saturday’s loss, Allen said he could use the bye week to reevaluate personnel decisions, even at quarterback, where Bazelak has had moments of goodness interspersed with woeful inaccuracies.

“We have to look at every possible option,” Allen said following Indiana’s 2nd straight loss to Rutgers. “There’s no question. Whatever it is. We changed the offensive line today. We changed our schedule this week. We changed a lot of things this week to try to get a different outcome.”

But the potential for personnel changes is its own indictment. Here’s the problem for Indiana: Its best players were pulled in from the transfer portal. Look, in 2022, it’s acceptable to fill roster holes from the portal — look at Illinois, a favorite in the Big Ten West, whose offseason acquisition of Tommy DeVito (and others) changed the program’s trajectory — but those newcomers can not represent the entirety of your offensive identity.

They do at Indiana, from Bazelak (Missouri) to Cam Camper (Trinity CC) to DJ Matthews (Florida State) to Shawn Shivers (Auburn) to Josh Henderson (North Carolina). Heck, if Allen does go in another direction at quarterback, he’ll probably chose Jack Tuttle, a former transfer from Utah who is back in the portal again now as a graduate.

But where are the high school-recruited players? According to 247sports, Indiana’s 2022 class was ranked 25th nationally. Its ’21 class was 54th, its ’20 group was 57th and ’19 came in at No. 37. But where are those players? Some have turned into starters — or at least contributors — on defense, but very few offensive prospects have worked out, especially at the skill positions. And that’s not a good look for Allen or his assistants.

Is he on the hot seat? Not yet. But it’s warming. And with Penn State coming up after the bye, then a trip to Columbus to take on Ohio State, the temps can escalate quickly.