Congrats to Indiana

Now We Can Go Back to Hating Them

As an Illini, it has been hard to watch Indiana football over the last two years. I mean, everyone scheduled Indiana for homecoming. Guaranteed win.

Seeing Indiana win a national championship in football makes me think the people who say we are living in The Matrix are correct.

One of the things I postulated when NIL and the transfer portal came to the college game was that we would see a team come out of nowhere. It was about money. I went so far as to say that the University of Chicago could bring back D1 football with enough money and win. Don’t worry, the Maroons aren’t coming back anytime soon.

I was kind of hoping it would be the Illini. We do have the satisfaction of beating Indiana regularly in basketball now, which the people from the state of Indiana think they own for some reason. Illinois had a decent football year, but over the past two, Indiana has outclassed Illinois by a lot.

Football is so much tougher to be proficient in. Injuries, but also the size of the team. If I wanted to dominate in basketball, I would only need three to six players. In football, out of the 22, you'd better have some high achievers, and you need some darn good backups to give the starters a blow when they need it.

It’s why a school like UNLV could become a national power in basketball again with enough NIL money. They have a tradition, though none of the kids playing today know who Shark was.

The Big 10 has been the Big 2 and Little 8 for as long as I can remember. Even adding Nebraska and Penn State hasn’t changed the balance of power when it comes to football. Adding the whole bunch of teams from the PAC 12, along with Maryland and Rutgers didn’t change it either.

Occasionally, teams would rise for a bit. Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Northwestern, and Michigan State have all had a moment in the sun in the past few decades, but they never broke out of being the Little 8.

I had friends play football at Indiana. One started at linebacker in the Rose Bowl, no need to say which year, since there was only one. His joke was that he tried to tackle OJ Simpson and missed. Two from my high school played offensive line there, and they lost lots of games. They were 11-33 during their time there. Another buddy I traded with played linebacker on their celebrated Holiday Bowl team Lee Corso coached. We used to give them all grief about Indiana football, and they were nice about it. They had to be. Indiana was a doormat. Even the Northwestern people would give them grief.

Pretty sure they could give it all back now, and we’d have to be nice to them. In the last two years, they beat their rival Purdue 122-3. They made Ohio State look like little boys. They were a true wrecking company over the past couple of years.

When you live in Chicago, every Big 10 school has a bar and a huge fanbase. When my wife and I got married, our neighbor had played soccer at Indiana when they won the national championship. Cool, but it was soccer. IU was always good at swimming and, of course, basketball. Now they kind of stink at basketball, which is glorious. On the trading floor, people from different schools would mack about their school all the time. I can still hear Wayne Friedman (FO) talking very loudly about Indiana. He became insufferable in 1987. There is an Indiana alum reader of this blog from the livestock quadrant who will become insufferable now, though in a nice way. Instead of a photo of the Pope in their house, they have Bobby Knight on the wall.

There were always a fair number of kids who went from the Chicago area to Indiana and Purdue, but the most popular schools after Illinois were Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa. Bloomington, Madison, Iowa City….party towns. We used to joke that you didn’t need an ACT score to go there, just sign your name at the top of the test.

Truth be told, the Big 10 historically has had some of the best academics top to bottom in the country. Though the SEC/ACC schools are getting a lot stronger, especially now that kids are migrating to them.

It’s been amazing watching this. Cignetti is the best coaching hire in college football since Alabama hired Saban. Illini fans have vicariously enjoyed watching Indiana pound everyone this year, except when they beat the fighting illini by 60. The lower-case letters in the prior sentence are deliberate.

The Big 10 has a lot of rivalries. Everyone knows about OSU vs Michigan. Yawn. But the Little 8 have rivalries, too. Illinois people do not like Purdue, Indiana, Iowa, or Northwestern. Minnesota and Wisconsin have rivalries in football and basketball, but go watch them play hockey. Purdue and Indiana have a rivalry every bit as bitter as any other Big 10 rivalry. Even Purdue fans are probably okay with Indiana winning a football championship. It’s been a delight, but hard watching Indiana run the table.

It’s especially been good to watch because Indiana defies the experts. No “five-star” guys on the roster. None. We will see come NFL draft time how many IU players get drafted, or make it as free agents. They were a true team.

Cignetti is just that great a coach. He recruits the portal, and he knows how to build a team. He’s won big no matter where he has been. They don’t have the most expensive roster. But they have the best one. They might have the best coach in the Big 10. He is from the Saban Coaching Tree. How many schools will try to hire his assistants to see what he did be replicated at their school?

Additionally, over the past couple of decades, Indiana’s Kelley Business School has been climbing up in the rankings and has surpassed Illinois Gies School, or is roughly the same, depending on the ranking you look at. Now, the Bears are looking at moving to Indiana, too.

Season is over. Congrats. Respect for what they did. We can go back to hating Indiana again. Hoosiers come to Champaign on February 15. Hope the Illini beat them by 30.

Can’t watch this clip enough. Let’s get back to normal.