As a resident of Wright Quad in 1967, I fell in love with college football. The Rose Bowl season was magical. The Cardiac Kids were heroes. Punt John Punt and John Pont were Sports Illustrated icons and the season was a total blast. When the announcers pointed out yesterday that IU had not beaten Michigan in Ann Arbor since 1967 and then when I remembered that IU has beaten Ohio State only once in 60 years, it really hit me how I have been spinning my wheels supporting our team since 1967. I have lived in Ohio and Florida since 1969 and have attended at least one game in Bloomington each year. Usually I got a group of friends together and we went to the homecoming game, played some golf and frequented Nicks and the other restaurants in Bloomington. Seldom did we see the team win. So the more I thought about this the more I realized how the deck is stacked by college football against the lesser teams like IU, Illinois, Northwestern, the MAC and many others in obscure conferences. We have no chance. If we are lucky, we will get crumbs every now and then. No, I am not saying destroy college football. What I am saying is that if you expect to win a national championship, or even a Big Ten championship, it is not going to happen unless you have the tradition, big stadium, money and recruiting base of a Michigan, OSU, Oklahoma, Alabama and Penn State along with a handful of others. It is not the fault of the college coaches or the players. It is the reality that OSU has 20 to 30 guys each year who will make NFL rosters. IU might have 2 or 3. Better players will win almost every time. So in the meantime, support your team. Homecoming is still great. But don't expect to win anything significant because we can't. So yes, after 54 years of yelling and screaming, I am surrendering. I will watch the Hoosiers on TV but with little expectations. Being beat up for all of those years has gotten very old. So now I will devote time to watching the NFL where the rules give every team a chance to win, (Jacksonville and Denver and the Giants have already won today), where coaching really matters and where every team has 53 NFL quality players accounting for the balance in the teams.
The NFL is Simply much more fun to Watch
- Thread starter Rotonda Jim
- Start date
I'm not so much a fan of the NFL but everything you said is spot on. I have contended and still believe that under the current division alignment and a 9-game conference schedule, as long as IU can finish 6-6 and be bowl eligible consistently our head coach deserves to stay. I am also realistic enough to understand that for us to consistently be bowl eligible we need three automatic wins non-conference. And we must be have the good fortune of having our best players healthy. Our linemen will never be more than average as a group, and our depth will never be able to match the titans in our conference. Key players missing significant time will always be a killer for us. It's just the way it is and I don't believe for a second that there is a magic coach out there who can change the situation.
There's absolutely no reason Indiana can't trot out lines comparable to Iowa or Wisconsin. The ratings tell us that they don't typically sign a bunch of 4* linemen. What they consistently do better than Indiana is they actually develop their linemen.
Their oline coaching has been superior to what we have. Several years ago I looked up the ratings of Wisconsin's starting 5 olinemen and they were 2*/3* players out of high school.
Rotonda Jim - I understand some of the points you’re making here. But why can’t Indiana win a few B1G championships here and there and make it to the Rose Bowl a few times here and there? Wisconsin has done it a # of times the last 30 years and Indiana produces more High School talent than Wisconsin?
And the Badgers get virtually everyone Wisconsin produces and Indiana is divided up amongst Purdue and Indiana after Notre Dame and Ohio State and Michigan have skimmed 75% of the cream off the top.
and now we can also add Clemson and Alabama to the list of elite out-of-state programs recruiting the state of Indiana
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Moore, Bell and Karlaftis likely contributed a great deal to the renewed interest.
Clemson started it off by signing Hunter Johnson and Caden Curry just visited Alabama
And why do you think that is?? Indiana was a much better team and program when Barry Alvarez took over Wisconsin. How do you explain all the success Nebraska had over the last half of the 20th century? Nebraska has to recruit all over the country for Nebraska only produces a few Division I players per year. But they had Bob Delaney and Tom Osborne who created that winning culture. Same with Barry in Madison. Living in a state that produces good talent helps but it’s not the entire equation. Otherwise UCLA would just be a juggernaut every year and of course they haven’t been for a long time. It has to start with the head coach. He has to create that buzz and excitement which then leads to getting the talent needed. So far CTA hasn’t proven to be that guy.
I think it also hurts a lot that Indiana is a basketball state and high school football is average at best. So we must keep recruiting out of state even if that costs too much money.
Just a quick correction. IU has defeated OSU twice in the stretch you mentioned, that being in 87 and 88.
Well, yeah, I know. My kids are in their mid-30s. It's just a depressing thing to tell people that we've only beaten OSU twice in my lifetime.
I actually was at the game in Bloomington and forgot about it since it was so long ago.
To be totally frank, I always thought that it wasn't exactly the weight room that made those linemen stronger. It was the era of steroids and PEDs. Just saying out loud but not necessarily accusing anyone of anything illegal.
A number of (mostly B1G 10) fans have raised the same question re: Wisconsin’s player development program
I can remember when the same question was posed re: Nebraska’s player development program back in the 80’s and 90’s—you’d keep seeing these huge NFL-bound guys weighing somewhere around 290-300, then you’d find out they had played six-man football at some small high school in some tiny town at a body weight of something like 200 lbs just 4 years earlier
