My Heart Break Hoosiers-- They Find a Way

My Heart Break Hoosiers-- They Find a Way

To Lose. Again. It's not financial ruin or famine or catastrophe or war. It's Indiana football. Losers most of the time. It should not matter much, but it is hard when you care. Like me.

Last night, it happened again. The Indiana football team was on the road, they had more seasoned veterans against the youthful and down on their luck Golden Gophers. IU was considered to be the winning pick by the Fox1 professionals touting the Friday night match up, estimated to win by a touch down by all of them. These are smart guys, former coaches and Heisman winners. I was set and watching every minute. However: no, they don't know how Indiana football performs. Or chokes. As they did end up doing by the last minute of the game on this cold rainy night. Again. Minnesota had been crushed last week by a very struggling Nebraska squad. IU had played Penn St. tough enough to win the Saturday before. Both teams going in different directions? The Gophers had more key injuries.

Even the he rain probably helped the Hoosiers more in Minneapolis.

IU moved the ball the first half decently, but ended up with 3 field goals for a measly 9 points. One FG came after 3 downs and done subsequent to a fortuitous turnover by the home team. But the HOOSIERS could not move the ball! Meanwhile the never played before D-1 Minnesota back up QB Tanner Morgan picked the Hoosiers apart for 21 points. Down by 12 at the half. This was a pretty poor start but correctable.

It got worse in the 3rd quarter, then trailing the hometown heroes 31-9. I was in despair. They probably had a better crowd than what IU fans would provide in Bloomington. Typical. Minnesota was 3-4, IU 4-4.

We--ahem, IU had the Penn State Nittany Lions beat just last week! We outproduced them! But lost on special teams play. What was going on with these guys?

Do I sound defeatist? Like a pessimist? Let me take you back down some of my memory lane...

I remember following some IU football back to the 1970s. I fully recall Indiana playing the vaunted Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints school Brigham Young in the crazy Holiday Bowl of 1979. I was eight. It was a big party occasion at the Wankier/Gilchrist home. Little did I know then how much I would devote myself later in life to either program. I am became quite ensconced by 1983 or so. I am devotee of both teams: the often hapless Hoosiers and the more than often gritty BYU Cougars.

Maybe it all started for me in 1979? Maybe it will go on for me till 2079, but I digress... 

We cannot know the future. Maybe Indiana will go back to Rose Bowl some day? Not for now, assuredly...

IU had its first bowl win over BYU in 1979, a harbinger of less to come. BYU went on to greatness in the early eighties, while my hometown Hoosiers also did have a decent run from the late 1980s to the early 1990s by going to six bowls in 8 years. Then the train derailed by the mid 1990s, until once in 2007 when they rallied for a dead coach Terry Hoeppner (all respect to him and his loved ones), a formerly fired coach who got them to two bowls that they lost (Kevin Wilson), but were highly competitive in them two and three years ago (2015, 2016).

Enter the current second year coach Tom Allen, who has emphasized defense.

Not enough so far, that is for sure.

Otherwise, we beat Penn State last week, we beat Minnesota last night. 

We would be 6-3, on the way to a bowl, no matter the last 3 games in November of this year.

Now, they all matter, most likely to a resurgent Purdue (despite them coming up short to Michigan State over the weekend). Maryland should prove as tough as last year, when my wife and I watched IU lose a shoot out in College Park, mostly on dumb IU errors. We saw IU barely beat Rutgers (there is a really struggling program) a few weeks ago in Piscataway. Yet, historically, Rutgers has seen more success and bowl seasons than Indiana.

It is relatively easy to qualify for a bowl game nowadays. Just go 6-6, and occasionally 5-7. Even 5-7 looks hard now for my hard pressed Hoosiers.

Ugh.

My Hoosiers, sounds too much like losers. Do I have to resort to only the basketball team as thousands of native Hoosiers have already done over the long, trying decades?

No. This team can still win.

I don't know if they will, against the Terrapins, the Wolverines, the Boilermakers, who look like world beaters after crushing number 2 Ohio State.

Ugh, I care too much.

Go IU: fear the Turtle, take care of the ball. And win.

I saw them beat Michigan and Ohio State in the same year. We can do this.

I pray that Tom Allen keeps them coming. IU will break some others' hearts. Other than our own, my own.

Yes, I am not a realist. I am an IU football optimist.

We can win... Just not as likely.

We find ways--er, the Indiana Hoosiers find ways-- to lose. Yes.

Maybe thus it will ever be.

The game last night? In our hands. Then out of our hands. We had tied it at 31 with the possession to win!

Thus is the pigskin, the elusive game of bashes and bruises.

Not a bull to be slain like in a Hemingway novel, or gloves to knock faces or the current vogue of the UFC. This is a another "man's game", dressed in colorful uniforms and helmets of non-deadly use.

This is how we care sometimes.