Plays stalling. Late-game errors. Relinquishing victories.

It was a trio of pillars foreign to Northwestern in the fourth quarter before blowing leads against Purdue and Iowa in the last two weeks.

But by the time the Wildcats took the field against Indiana, coach Pat Fitzgerald said his team’s goals were not fixated toward remedying a recent stretch of late flops.

“It wasn’t about the fourth quarter,” Fitzgerald said. “It wasn’t about winning our sixth game or becoming bowl eligible. It was about doing what we do and doing it as well as we possibly can.”

When it came to the fourth quarter Saturday, the Cats did what they did best: They ran the football 16 times on 23 plays.

Asked if he believed the same play calling would have produced a win against Purdue and Iowa, junior running back Tyrell Sutton limited his response.

“No comment,” he said, with a wry smile.

But junior quarterback C.J. Bacher had a reason for NU’s ability to procure a controlled, poised 12-play drive in the final minutes of the fourth quarter: pass protection.

“We had no sacks and there was barely any pressure at all,” Bacher said. “When you have time like that and when you’ve got Tyrell (Sutton) back there, you really just take it one play at a time, wanting to go out and wanting to make plays.”

But behind making those plays was an impetus for a larger goal: winning. In his final home game at NU, senior Kim Thompson recorded a career-best six catches for 78 yards, with five of those coming in the second half.

Thompson believes the Cats’ have recovered from their string of fourth-quarter losses.

“I told the guys before the game to play to win,” he said. “I think I’m playing to win and I think everyone’s getting on board with that. I think we lost sight of that for a couple of games and I think we’re back to that.”

CLOCK CONTROL

If there is one solution to containing an opponent, it is holding the ball.

Indiana sophomore quarterback Kellen Lewis entered the game 13th in the nation in total offense with 300.6 yards per game. But after watching the tape, Fitzgerald had a solution to containing the athletic quarterback and the Hoosiers’ offense.

“When their offense has an opportunity to have 80 to 90 plays, they’re really high-octane,” Fitzgerald said. “But it seemed if you limited their opportunities, they’d sputter a little bit.”

NU executed that goal to near-perfection Saturday, out-possessing the Hoosiers by 13 minutes, while running 25 more plays. The Cats’ defense held Lewis to 36 yards on 11 carries.

“Our job was to keep him contained,” senior defensive lineman David Ngene said. “Keeping him contained up the middle was a tough duty, but we got it done.”

INCHES TO GO

NU was 8 of 9 on third down in the second half, finishing the game 12 of 17. The Cats have converted 53 of their last 99 third-down possessions and entered the game ranked 28th in the country in third down efficiency, at 44.8 percent. … With 301 yards through the air Saturday, Bacher now has 3,346 passing yards this season. He is 276 yards shy of eclipsing the single-season NU record of 3,622 set by Brett Basanez in 2005 … Saturday’s attendance at Ryan Field of 20,466 was the lowest mark for a Big Ten game this season.

Reach Chris Gentilviso at [email protected].