The Hoosiers, blowout winners over Oregon, are on the doorstep of history -- and I still can't believe it
Don't wake me. Please.
MY COUCH, Ind. – Hours and hours later, I’m still stunned. And yet, I really shouldn’t be, not after IU clubbed then then-No. 9 Illinois, beat unbeatable Oregon in Eugene, played Ohio State off its feet in the Big Ten title game, then beat the bejesus out of Alabama in the quarterfinals of the College Football Playoff.
I still see the logo, the brand, the IU, and all of this feels vaguely impossible.
The Hoosiers, playing Miami for the national title next Monday night at Hard Rock Stadium?
It’s as if fiction took a holiday, giving way to a reality so outlandish, so improbable, it wouldn’t pass muster as a movie script because it’s too ridiculous. Really, sell this: How the losingest program in football history (until this season) went from three winning seasons in the prior 30 and emerged as a national superpower. Like that. I mean, it took Curt Cignetti 10 minutes to transform this program, to make everybody, players and fans alike, believe in the audacious possibilities of Indiana football.
“I don’t take a back seat to anybody,” Cignetti bellowed when he was introduced to the IU basketball crowd two years ago.
I’ll be honest: I was watching the pre-game College GameDay show on ESPN, and I got nervous. Everybody was singing IU’s praises, and rightly so, and at the end of the final segment, three-of-three panelists, including Nick Saban, picked the Hoosiers to win the rematch with Oregon. They have made believers of us all, even if it’s hard to shake the memories of sitting in sleet storms at half-empty Memorial Stadium watching the Hoosiers lose to Rutgers by 35. This is the program where Lee Corso once took a timeout to take a team picture of his squad with the scoreboard showing IU 7, Ohio State 0. Ohio State went on to win that game in an all-too-typical blowout. And getting tailgaters to leave their parties to make their way across 17th Street to fill the stadium? Forget about it. As IU students used to wear on a T-shirt, “We’ve never lost a tailgate.”
