The Best Part of Big Ten 2020: The Indiana Fryfogles

Indiana, y’all. For at least fifteen years, we’ve all said the same thing about the Indiana Hoosiers football team. “If they had even a remotely good defense, Indiana would be really good!” Well, they had a good defense this season.

The Big Ten coaches selected SIX Hoosiers to All-B1G Defense teams. Micah McFadden made the first team, while Indiana placed four different defensive backs on the second and third teams. Plus they had an honorable mention.

The Big Ten media voters likewise put six Hoosiers on All-B1G Defense teams, plus one honorable mention. The media, however, put FOUR Hoosiers on the First Team Defense—more than any other team in the conference. The defense was REALLY good.

Oh and yeah, the offense was good. Michael Penix, Jr, Stevie Scott III, and Peyton Hendershot made All-B1G teams. Whop Phylor and Harry Crider received All-B1G HonNoms. Oh and this Ty Fryfogle guy, he was pretty good too! He won the Richter-Howard Wide Receiver of the Year award and the media named him All-B1G Offense First Team. Lol at the coaches for only putting him on the Second Team. Idiotic coaches.

Anyway, the short version is Indiana was actually good this year, and it’s been a LONG time coming. The theme from Candystripes, our favorite Indiana writer, and from our innumerable Indiana readers/commentors was something along the lines of “It’d be nice if instead of putting up a surprisingly tough game against a ranked opponent, we actually won and got the upset!” That happened this year, repeatedly. Sure, it turns out that some of the early season “big” upsets turned out not to be surprising in hindsight, but Indiana fans finally got to feel both the rush and excitement of unexpectedly being in an IMPORTANT game and the joy and relief of, you know, actually winning those games!

We’ve got some “Why was Indiana so great this year” contributions from OTE writers. First up, your Indiana writer, Candystripes:

Mike Penix throws for almost 500 yards against OSU, Ty Fryfogle becomes the first Big Ten receiver with back to back 200 yard receiving games, THE STRETCH (TM) against Penn State, beating a whole lot of teams we don’t often beat.... really, other than coming up short against OSU and Penix getting hurt AGAIN, 2020 was really good for the Hoosiers on the football field.

Bonus “Yay Indiana” content from MNWildcat:

My feel-good moment is the on-field interview with Tom Allen after the Hoosiers beat the badgers: https://twitter.com/espn/status/1335375688313004041How do you watch that and not feel a little warm and fuzzy?

I, personally, did not like Indiana beating Wisconsin this season, but it’s hard for me to sit here with a straight face and deny that it was fun, interesting, and overall A Good Thing that the Indiana Hoosiers won the East Division, beat traditional powers, lit up the offensive and defensive stat sheets, and finally got multiple happy moments in a single season for their long-long-long-long suffering fans. Congrats, Indiana: You were a Great Thing About B1G2020