It didn’t seem possible this could ever happen. After crushing Purdue 66-0 on Saturday, Indiana football is headed for the College Football Playoff at 11-1. It was quite the turnaround for the Hoosiers after going 3-9 last season and extending their FBS record for the most losses ever by a program.
Indiana football was always an afterthought when people talked about Big Ten football. Now under first-year head coach Curt Cignetti, he has been able to change the fan culture with his winning.
“The energy from the fans proves to me there have always been football fans here at IU that want to support a good team,” Professor of Undergraduate Education at The Media School and diehard IU fan Galen Clavio said. “We just haven’t had many good teams for them to support.”
The problem for Indiana wasn’t getting students to go near Memorial Stadium, but rather taking them away from tailgates outside the stadium. Students would come in late for the start of the game and, in past years, most left games at halftime leaving the student section nearly empty. It seemed like the same story this year even with dominant wins against nonconference opponents. That was until Indiana started getting more national recognition including being on College Gameday for the first time ever. Jeremy Gray, Senior Associate Athletic Director, got a notice Gameday might come to Bloomington and expected it to be a rowdy scene.
“People will try to camp out the night before for sure,” Gray said. “I would imagine late afternoon on Friday we will start to see some trying to set up base camp to be able to camp out and watch it.”
Students arrived ridiculously early, with the first ones arriving at 10:30 am just under 24 hours until College Gameday started. By the afternoon a few hundred students were lined up down 17th Street. As for the atmosphere at the game, it has been different than any other year. That includes new additions at IU as they now wave towels to add to the environment at Memorial Stadium. It started as just the student section with white towels but now has expanded to every person in the stadium receiving a towel.
“I believe that this was happening someday but not sure that it would have been this particular season,” longtime IU fan Rob Rexing said. “I’m very happy that it is though.”
It is an understatement to say Indiana football past hasn’t been pretty. The Hoosiers’ last bowl game win was in 1991 in the Copper Bowl. With 11 wins on the season, IU has their first 10+ win season, leaving only Vanderbilt as the only power five team without a 10-win season.
The records keep on coming for the Hoosiers as their 66-0 win in the Old Oaken Bucket game over rival Purdue was their largest victory ever against the Boilermakers.
“Whether we are playing in Memorial (Stadium) or somewhere else I’m excited about the chance of their being a playoff game at all for Indiana,” Clavio said. “That’s a miracle by itself.”
Indiana still awaits their opponent in the College Football Playoff as the final CFP Rankings come out on Sunday, December 8.