Indiana Football is Destined for Greatness

Well, it’s Friday of Indiana week and it’s time to hate. To be honest, I’m a little scared to be too mean this year. I do not want this piece to come back and haunt me after IU football becomes a powerhouse in the near future. But, as the Purdue “writer” on staff, I am obligated to come out of my mother’s basement once a year to be mean towards Indiana. So here we go.

As a Purdue fan, I realize that Indiana football is a sleeping giant. Some say that is going too far to compare IU football to the United States of America before World War II, but I think it doesn’t go far enough. It took the USA almost four years to win that war. It is plain to see that IU football will win the Big Ten within the next three. And then win more games than anyone thought imaginable within seven years.

I know there are some among us who would argue that Indiana football is bad and will always be bad. They say look at this evidence:

• 4 combined conference wins over the past two seasons
• The head coach has a first name for a last name and a first name for a first name.
• The athletic director is named after a bad M. Night Shyamalan movie
• Their football stadium is called Memorial Stadium as a tribute to their earlier stadium, called Memorial Stadium
• The term “glass ceiling” was originally named after AD Fred Glass. Its original meaning is “a football team that cannot achieve better than a 5-7 record”
• They converted State Road 37 into I-69 that runs north-south through Bloomington. It is a pretty nice road. Six lanes and they got rid of a couple of stoplights. It runs sort of on the side of Bloomington, so it isn’t really that crowded. What is the speed limit of that road? 70? 65? No sir, it is 55 miles per hour.
• They practice in something called the John Mellencamp Pavilion. It is named after, you guessed it, Frank Stallone
• Indiana University football has a thing in their stadium called The Rock and it has nothing to do with the movie or the actor/wrestler
• Famous future telling guy Nostradamus once said, “Indiana University football is doomed to mediocrity for eternity.”
• IU football has lost 672 games, which is the most losses of any team in the history of the universe

All that being said, I am not convinced that IU is not going to turn into a football powerhouse the likes of which the Big Ten has never seen. Why do I say that? Because I am old and I remember the past.

Indiana used to be awful. Just plain awful. Back in 2011, Indiana only won one game! I’m not a math wizard, but that is really bad compared to the five wins they can consistently crank out these days.

Now, I went to the state school in Indiana known for engineering. That school is not IU. That’s why IU fans aren’t as optimistic as I am about the future of their football program. They can’t understand math as well as I do. Look at this chart and tell me what you see:

I see a program on the rise. From 1 win in 2011 to 5 wins in 2018. In only seven years, IU football has quintupled their win total. Math and logic tell us that in seven more years, IU will quintuple their win total again. So in 2025, Indiana football will win 25 games.

As you can see, I am correct to be afraid of what IU football will become. Anecdotal evidence of hundreds of years of sad mediocre IU football is no match for math. And the math says that Indiana football will win 25 games in the year 2025.

Check out the updated graph and be afraid. Be very afraid of the updated graph.

So laugh it up, people. We’ve got until 2025 to make fun of the Indiana football program.