Boiling Point

WEST LAFAYETTE -- IU senior safety Will Meyers ran off the field Saturday at Ross-Ade Stadium as Purdue fans and players celebrated all around him and his Hoosier teammates. \nPlaying in his last collegiate game, Meyers felt the emotions run through him -- disappointment, disbelief and anger. But most of all, he felt aggravation.\n"The tears hadn't really started yet. It was more frustration," Meyers said. "I just wanted to get off (the field) before anything worse happened."\nMeyers is one of 21 seniors who played their last game as Hoosiers on Saturday, a 28-19 loss against Purdue in West Lafayette. The defeat finished off any Hoosier hopes for a bowl game, which would have been their first since 1993, and ended IU's 2006 season.\nAs the final seconds on the clock wound down, the seniors realized this was it. No more games. No more practice.\n"Empty. One word," said senior center Justin Frye. "Very empty. I put a lot into getting ready for games and everything. You play hard, and when you look up and you're not on the winning side, especially in a big game like this, you feel empty."\nIU coach Terry Hoeppner, who wrapped up his second year at IU on Saturday afternoon, inherited this group of players upon arriving in Bloomington. As juniors in Hoeppner's first year, the current senior class struggled through a 4-7 season.\nThis season's record improved overall from that of a year ago, but the result was the same: no bowl game. \nOn Saturday following the game, his head buried in his hands, Hoeppner sat alone in a corner waiting for the post-game press conference. He expressed his appreciation for what the senior class did for the Hoosiers.\n"I just told the seniors I'm proud of the way they played, the way they've led," Hoeppner said. "I don't know if I've ever felt as badly for a group of guys as I feel for these guys. They're taking it so hard that we don't get to play together one more time."\nAfter four seasons of yearlong workouts, personal sacrifices and heartbreaking moments on and off the field, the senior class finished with a disappointing 14-32 record overall and a 6-26 mark in the Big Ten, with three of those conference wins coming this season.\nThey have seen the coach who recruited them (Gerry DiNardo) fired, and another coach (Hoeppner) who has helped revive IU football hired. In the span of less than a year, the seniors have seen their new coach undergo two brain surgeries. But through it all, the Hoosiers said they're better for it.\n"When you go through all that adversity, your seniors have to band together, just keep it all together," said senior defensive back Troy Grosfield. "We went through those coaching changes, through so many growing pains. We've just been through a lot together."\nNow, as the program prepares to move on without its veteran leaders, the seniors can look back on their IU careers and see that they have accomplished something, even if the ultimate goal of a bowl berth was never attained.\n"We changed things along the way," Frye said. "We didn't get a bowl game. We didn't get our big main goals that we wanted. But in the end, we're leaving this program a lot better than when we got here, and you can feel happy about that"