Monday, November 19, 2007

Snatching Victory From The Jaws Of Defeat

The Indiana football Hoosiers managed to hold off the Purdue football Boilermakers on Saturday evening for their seventh win of the season and an increased likelihood that they will be invited to play in a postseason bowl game for the first time since 1993 - which, among other things, was the last time they played in a bowl game, and the last time they won as many as seven games. They went 8-3 that season and have had fewer than six wins in every season since (excepting 1994 and this season).

That was around the time that Osama Brand Laden forced former head coach Bill Mallory out of his job in his bizarre campaign to turn down the volume on college sports and - apparently - make Indiana fans suffer as much as possible. In the space between Mallory and the late Terry Hoeppner, Hoosier Nation had to settle for head coaches Cam Cameron (an NFL offensive coordinator and not a head coach at any level - just ask the Miami Dolphins if you don't believe me) and Gerry Dinardo (who failed utterly in an attempt to install a West Coast-type offense at Indiana - the key to a good West Coast offense is a good passing quarterback, which Indiana rarely manages to recruit).

Then along came Hep, and he changed the football program at Indiana more with his enthusiasm and energy than with any kind of coaching system - by making first his players and then the rest of the students and finally the alumni fans care about Indiana football once again. He made a difference in the lives of his players, too - off the field as well as on it. He turned problem child wide receiver James Hardy around and helped the kid get his life on track. Instead of being a malcontent plagued by off-field legal issues (such as domestic battery charges), Hardy has gotten his head into the game and become one of the two or three most exciting receivers in all of college football, and mark these words: he'll be the best player Indiana University ever sent to the NFL.

Sadly, of course, Coach Hep succumbed to brain cancer this summer, just a few months before the season was to get underway - and was thus unable to watch as his football Hoosiers ran with the "Play 13" motto - with the goal of winning at least six of twelve regular seasons games and thereby earning a thirteenth game, a postseason bowl game. And if not for key turnovers in three of those twelve games (Illinois, Penn State, and Northwestern), this Indiana team might well be 10-2 instead of 7-5 - with the only question being how good a bowl they would play in, not whether they would be invited at all.

But that's okay - seven wins is just fine, and it's a fine place from which to build, as the team has quarterback Kellen Lewis and receiver Hardy for one more season together (provided Hardy elects to stay in school for his senior year and not go pro); and if Lewis learns to protect the ball a little more, it's going to be an exciting fall for Hoosier Nation next season.

So once again, thanks to the late, great Coach Terry Hoeppner - for putting some spark back in Indiana University football. Wherever you are, coach, I hope you've watched, with well-deserved pride, the show those kids have put on this year (assuming you had the Big Ten Network, of course).

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