Hello and welcome to the first Friday hate of 2022 B1G football (and Coral) on OTE.

I considered just listing all of Indiana’s bowl victories in the lifetime of your average high school football recruit and calling it a day. But as it turns out, a completely blank article doesn’t do a whole to drive reader engagement and with this new fangled commenting system, management keeps yelling about how they need comments or they are going to have to let their butler go.

Next I considered all the perfectly legitimate, totally normal reasons why I hate the Indiana Hoosiers and all that they stand for. Why any self-respecting Purdue fan - nah, any self-respecting Big Ten fan - should hate Indiana. And it got me thinking... most of the fans of other Big Ten schools probably don’t care enough about the athletics department run by Indiana University to be bothered to hate them. Which I guess makes some sense. After all, how does someone begin to care about an opposing football program with a .420 winning percentage all time? Or about a football program so lacking in history that their only two conference conference titles occurred with rosters containing a bunch of draft dodging hippies in 1967 and 1945? This complete lack of success probably even has some of you pitying Indiana and looking upon them as one does a helpless puppy trying to take their first steps. Nothing in this world could be a bigger mistake. Clearly it has fallen upon me to educate the unwashed masses of OTE about the dangers of Indiana and the importance that hating Indiana has.

The Ohio State fans

I know that Indiana offers no threat to your competition for 2nd place in the East division and that you question why you should be bothered to hate them. After all it’s been 34 long years since the Hoosiers last beat your Buckeyes. But here’s the thing: it hasn’t been 35 years.

Michigan fans

I know that Indiana has a pathetic 10-60 all time record against the Wolverines and that you question why you should be bothered to hate them. It’s not like Indiana even has a more recent NCAA basketball banner laying around - and you even get to keep your banner up because Juwan wasn’t involved!. But while your current basketball coach pulls his best Bob Knight impression, the national media never talks about Michigan’s more recent basketball championship despite praising Indiana basketball every chance they get.

Northwestern fans

I know that Indiana is the only non-turtle Big Ten program that you have a winning record against in football and that you question why you should be bothered to hate them. You’ve even made the Round of 32 more recently in men’s basketball. But they also took celebrated Wildcat superstar Miller Kopp away from you.

Photo by Abbie Parr/Getty Images

Wisconsin fans

I know that Indiana allowed 83 points to your Badgers on the football field just 12 years ago and that you question why you should be bothered to hate them. Not only do you have a better record in your last 11 games against Indiana football than your last 11 games against Minnesota football, but Indiana hasn’t even beat you in men’s basketball at the Kohl Center this millennium. But Indiana was the first newcomer to the conference to adopt your exact hideous color scheme. All the others followed their example.

Minnesota fans

I know that Indiana hasn’t beaten the Gophers football team in 15 years and that you question why you should be bothered to hate them. Indiana doesn’t even have a former men’s basketball coach with more national championships than Minnesota’s best men’s basketball coach. But as a school with 17 different rivals, don’t you have room in your hearts for hating just one more school?

Iowa fans

I know that Indiana is one of the few basketball programs to have had a coach that makes Fran look normal and that you question why you should be bothered to hate them. A ten year period of not losing to the Hoosiers on the gridiron isn’t so bad either. But don’t forget that Steve Alford is an Indiana alumni.

Maryland fans

I know that Indiana lost to you in the championship game of your only national championship in basketball and that you question why you should be bothered to hate them. I’m sure the fact that they’ve proven as equally awful against the top of the Big East division has given you some hope as well. But Indiana’s lack of a veterinary school means they hate turtles.

If you’ve read this far, you deserve to know why I hate Indiana. So here are just a few of the reasons to hate the Hoosiers:

• They can’t even spell their own names. This embarrassing lack of basic skills lowers the academic prestige of their fellow Big Ten members. We already have to compensate for Nebraska being a member. Indiana just makes it that much worse.

Photo by Ken Cedeno/Bloomberg via Getty Images

• They weren’t a founding member of the original Big Ten. Which like half of your carpetbagger schools aren’t at this point, so you are probably wondering what is the big deal? Well Indiana was one of the first two schools involved in conference expansion ever. I think we can all agree that conference expansion has been a terrible thing and Indiana is responsible for that invention.
• They have no Big Ten pride. Now I’m not saying they need to be S-E-C levels of enthusiasm because that’s gross, but at least acknowledge your conference membership.

Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

• They chose the super unoriginal school colors of red and white. New conference members should have been required to pick new colors.
• What even is a Hoosier? Without a mascot we may never know. Some old Hoosier fans claim they once had a bison mascot, but further their further claims that Purdue Pete murdered it are clearly libelous rumormongering and show the lack of merit to their previous mascot claims.

Photo by Jeffrey Brown/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

• They don’t have an engineering school and are against all technological progress. Nobody likes the Luddites.
• They still use bicycles instead of modern forms of transportation

Photo by AJ Mast /Icon SMI/Icon Sport Media via Getty Images

• They have a law school and the last thing we need are more lawyers (with no apologies to the original founders of this blog)
• They don’t have an agricultural school. By not helping to solve the world’s food shortages, Indiana endorses child hunger.

Photo by Sumit Saraswat/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images

• They can’t even manage to beat lowly Tennessee in a bowl game.
• They fired this guy. Those monsters!

Photo by Mitchell Layton/Getty Images

But Wait - There’s More!

For the Illini, Children of the Corn, New Yorkers, Kittens of Midwestern Pennsylvania, and Athenians out there, please note that I didn’t forget about you. As it turns out you guys all have very specific additional reasons to hate Indiana.

Nebraska fans

You have a losing record against Indiana football. You are also probably insulted by the very notion of a football program setting their goal as 9Windiana when you have fired multiple coaches for only getting 9 wins. 10 wins should clearly be the goal of any head coach if they want to keep their job (even if Nebraska has to change that to 10 conference wins in 4 seasons).

Illinois fans

You were the first I school in the Big Ten. You built an Ass Hall first. How dare Indiana copy your ideas. Plagiarism should not be tolerated.

Penn State fans

You know that Penix was short. He was only given the spot and the touchdown because the refs felt sorry for Hoosiers. Do not pity the Hoosiers. Beat them.

Michigan State fans

You are forced to play Indiana yearly for one of the dumbest trophies in all of college football - the Old Brass Spittoon.

Photo by Adam Ruff/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Rutgers fans

The Hoosiers have more conference titles in football than you do. I mean so does just about everyone, but Indiana is one of the few you might have thought your school had as many as.

Thank you all for joining today’s two minutes of hate. Remember to HEO (hate each other).

Oh and just in case anyone forgot