It's not smoke and mirrors; Hoosiers roll Nebraska, move to 7-0 and now we're talking "college football playoff." I mean, why not?

You're not dreaming. The Hoosiers are really, really good, and not just the product of a soft schedule.

My buddy, a fellow IU grad who has lived through several decades of mostly wretched Hoosiers football, texted me early in the fourth quarter of Saturday’s IU blowout victory over Nebraska:

“You are not on mushrooms,’ he wrote. “This is really IU football.”

He was right. I was not ingesting mushrooms (not even a cold beer…yet) and yes, this is really IU football. This is not a hallucination, not a mirage, not a fever dream. This is not a drill. This is the real thing.

All the Hoosiers did Saturday was host Fox’s Big Noon pre-game show – is ESPN’s GameDay on the horizon? -- sell out Memorial Stadium for the first time since 2021 and show a national TV audience that they are far more than a cute, little story.

True, the early-season success was partly a product of a favorable schedule; heading into this weekend, IU’s previous opponents were a combined 14-21. This game would reveal the Hoosiers for who they are, facing off against a 5-1 Nebraska team that led the Big Ten in sacks, tackles for loss and featured a promising freshman quarterback named Dylan Raiola.

And they smoked them, pulverized a solid, middle-class Big Ten team, and did it in such a way that it seems almost impossible the Hoosiers won’t be 9-0 heading into the Nov. 9 home game against Michigan. (Next up: Washington at home and then a game at Michigan State.) It would not shock anybody if the Hoosiers are ranked close to the top 10 after coming into this week at No. 16. And not only are we talking about competing for a Big Ten title, we can even utter the words “college football playoff” without snickering.

Or drug testing.

I am not on mushrooms.

Swear to you.