As an Indiana graduate, I still can’t process what’s happening in Bloomington

I’m an Indiana graduate, but not an Indiana football fan.

Let me explain. I want my alma mater to be successful in everything. About 8 different times during the first Saturday College GameDay for football I got chills watching from my couch in Orlando. At one point I’m pretty sure I fought back tears as the GameDay crew explained how to play “Sink the Biz” at the locally famous Nick’s English Hut, where my wife (also an Indiana graduate who studied much more than I) and I hosted our rehearsal dinner when we got married in suburban Bloomington in 2016.

The 2024 version of Indiana football has brought me immense pride, almost a year removed from first googling “Curt Cignetti” (I confirmed before he said his signature catchphrase that he is indeed winning).

But to be considered a fan of anything, you also have to endure suffering. An Indiana football loss has never ruined a Saturday for me. My fall happiness isn’t dependent on what the Hoosiers do on any given fall Saturday, so it would be stolen fan courage to compare myself to those who really bleed crimson in the fall (IU basketball is a different story).

I’ve prefaced this “I Can’t Believe This Is Actually Happening” column with this disclaimer because while some may assume I can’t be objective on this personal subject, I can assure anyone reading this that I have 16 years of experience in that field. department .

Would things have been different if IU had a rich football history instead of being constantly reminded during this historic season that no Power Conference program has lost more games than the Hoosiers? Um, yeah. Duh. But for so many Indiana graduates like me, we learned long ago why years like this are almost unthinkable. Or at the very least, they’re only conceivable if you’re among the elite in the video game College Football ’25.

Does that make us haters? Or does that make us fair weather fans? I guess it depends on how you define that.

You see, some elements of Indiana football might not show up on the old Google machine, aside from the fact that IU football hasn’t won a bowl game since 1991. (The Hoosiers have played in only six games since then.)

One is that for many of us during our college years, going to football games is a fall tradition. Or rather, tailgating across from Memorial Stadium – in one of the more underrated scenes for such festivities – is a fall tradition. In fact, it was a tradition for freshmen to cross 17th St. and enter the stadium. For the rest of us, tailgating until kickoff, then going home to sleep and/or watch bigger college football games was our tradition (there was no better coincidental alarm clock than when those drums would drop at 4:30 on CBS).

There was another not-so-flattering tradition for Indiana football that even the most die-hard Hoosiers might not have been aware of. If you ever wondered how a team that rarely filled its stadium would get full crowd photos for any cover in the media guide or on the weight room wall, thank Ohio State for that. If the Buckeyes came to town and fans bought their cheapest road tickets of the year, they would fill the stadium… and provide the perfect setting for that aerial promotional photo of Memorial Stadium, because red and crimson look quite similar.

Cignetti changed that overnight.

My cousin, a current senior at IU who now goes to every game, will send me weekly videos of the scene at Memorial Stadium which looks like a venue on another continent compared to the venue we saw my senior year when IU 1-11 went (13-35 without a bowl berth Mine college experience). The headline “IU has sold out the rest of its home game tickets” was something that often couldn’t even have been written sarcastically prior to the Old Oaken Bucket game (the regular season finale), let alone in the middle of the competition. October with 3 home games to go.

It will be surreal to see a sold-out Memorial Stadium on Saturday at 3:30 PM ET on CBS as No. 8 IU looks to improve to 10-0 as a two-touchdown favorite against Michigan. I can’t decide which part of that sentence is the most incredible. All of it? IU hasn’t won ten games in any season, let alone the first ten.

One of my most vivid, down-to-earth college memories was in 2010. At the time, I was one of the football reporters for the Indiana Daily Student. That morning I walked down Indiana Ave. up from our 5-bedroom dorm on N. Dunn St. I had an extra boost because on that hazy day in early October, 3-0 IU would play host to No. 19 Michigan (I was a little too proud of the preview headline section ‘Defending Denard’ Robinson which I came up with months earlier expecting that slowing down Michigan QB Denard Robinson would be a chore).

The tailgate fields were full and there was a certain kind of buzz because IU had lost 16 straight games against Michigan. But if IU could indeed defend Denard, it might clinch a spot in the AP Top 25 for the first time in 16 years. As I got to the press box that day and finally looked around at the sold-out crowd of 52,929 fans, I realized that people rarely felt like they were on a fall Saturday in Bloomington.

“This is what big college football feels like, huh?”

Unfortunately for IU, it didn’t defend Denard. Robinson’s 5-touchdown, 494-yard performance led Michigan to an all-too-familiar 42-35 victory, the first of IU’s 7 straight Big Ten losses that season. As it stands now, the last time IU beat Michigan in front of the home fans was in 1987. The “in front of the home fans” is an important distinction, because IU obviously ended Michigan’s losing streak in 2020…when COVID prevented any kind of loss. fans to witness.

Of course, that will be a different story if IU can avoid a disappointment against the defending national champions on Saturday. And sure, there would be some “this is why IU football can’t have nice things” if that disappointment happens. But the first 9-0 start in program history is a beauty that won’t be taken away, even if IU can’t beat Michigan in front of its home fans for the first time since the Ronald Reagan administration.

Perhaps the only “letdown” of IU’s season is not playing a 60-minute game against Ohio State in Week 13. For some, that will be the only true measure of the Hoosiers’ 12-team Playoff credentials, and they I’ll ignore a 9-0 start with only double-digit wins. Honestly? I haven’t fully processed whether that is fair because I still haven’t fully processed these first 2 months in Bloomington.

I can’t imagine IU students like my cousin Indiana Ave. walking and tailgating for a possible home game at Memorial Stadium. I’m sure that’s what it felt like as I walked to the South End of Memorial Stadium to attend College GameDay. For many graduates like me, there was probably a pessimistic thought that IU’s season would culminate that morning. Instead, Cignetti led IU to a pair of wins by a combined score of 78-27.

This is not just historically different; it is unthinkable. Major college football in Bloomington? In November?!?

You don’t have to Google anything to process that. Just watch CBS on Saturday afternoon.