Hoosiers going bowling? #9WINDIANA? More likely than you’d think!
Folks, this Indiana football team looks good.
Like, really good.
With a decently dominant win over an overmatched Charlotte team last Saturday, Indiana heads into full-time conference play with three nonconference wins to show for it. The last time that happened was 2019, when Indiana ended up with eight wins and bowl eligibility (sadly said bowl was cancelled. There are no records of its existence. Do not try to find them, it is a futile effort.)
Add in a commanding win over UCLA (on the ROAD in the ROSE BOWL which is for some reason a CONFERENCE GAME these days) and Indiana isn’t just at 1-0 in Big Ten play, it has four wins.
Two more from now until the end of the season means these Hoosiers are going bowling. A quick gander at the schedule and how those squads are doing right now tells you that’s extremely possible.
Frankly the schedule was not good. But, like, why should it be?
This is not college basketball. A committee is not poring over dozens of rating systems to seed a bracket of 68 teams. One gets to six wins and a bunch of bowl executives get together and go “hey that’d be cool” and all of a sudden you’re playing Ole Miss in Florida and losing before Lane Kiffin really gets it going.
Anyway,
Indiana does not need to test its mettle against the class of college football. It needs to learn how to win games. That’s why you schedule cupcakes and let the defensive coordinator yell in the locker room when the defense allows a score to quite possibly the worst team in competitive intercollegiate football in the final two minutes of the first half.
Learn to win games now so you know what you’re doing later when it actually matters. Speaking of…
The opportunity for the fifth win comes this Saturday at home against Maryland. While memorial stadium has been dealing with some well publicized and discussed attendance issues, Friday’s game presents an opponent with a pulse that national observers and others have yet to see on Indiana’s schedule.
Maryland does not venture into Bloomington without issues. The Terps have replaced longtime starter Taulia Tagovailoa with Billy Edwards Jr (who yours truly swore was named something like Billy Joe Edwards when he ran all over Indiana’s defense to close out a Terps win a few years ago, but). Curt Cignetti knows Edwards from the former’s time at JMU, where he spent a good amount of time trying to convince the latter to suit up for his Dukes.
That didn’t end up happening but if Cignetti thinks a guy can play quarterback well there’s a pretty good shot that guy can play quarterback well. Ask Indiana’s wide receivers and OC Mike Shanahan how it’s working out so far with Kurtis Rourke.
Maryland might not be an “absolute must win or the season is over” but if you have a shot to get within one win of bowl eligibility and probably get ranked the next week you’ve gotta.