Insight Bowl, season a success; game a disappointment

TEMPE, Ariz. – An inspirational season came to a disappointing end Monday night.\nHistory will remember this season as the year the Hoosiers fulfilled their season-long goal to “play 13.”\nWitnesses will remember this season as the year the Hoosiers failed to compete during No. 13.\nBy the time the Hoosiers knew what had hit them it was too late. At halftime IU was down 35-10 to Oklahoma State, an insurmountable lead even by fairy tales' standards.\nThe second half became a formality, one many of the fans didn’t feel the need to stick around for. By the middle of the third quarter the Tempe bleachers were as empty as Wrigley Field’s in the cold of October.\nYou don’t need a crystal ball to tell you the Hoosiers won’t be the same team next year. The loss of the strongest senior class in years will leave an Arizona mountain-sized void in IU’s depth chart. \nIf you focus on the bottom line, this season is a success. Yes, they played 13. No, they didn’t quit. They fulfilled Terry Hoeppner’s dream.\nBut you don’t need me to tell you that Coach Hep wouldn’t have been satisfied this year, and the same can be said for IU coach Bill Lynch too.\nYou don’t travel to a bowl game for the weather. You don’t come for the New Year’s block party. And you certainly don’t come to get blown out by a team in front of your home fans who traveled across the country just to see you.\nNext year’s success might start with something as trivial as setting your goals higher. How about “win 13” – or “don’t give up 35 points in the first half of your bowl game.”\nPeople tend to make resolutions at this time of the year. The players and coaching staff of IU’s football team should be no different. \nHere a couple of friendly suggestions:\nContinue to honor the memory of Coach Hep. There was no stronger motivator this season for IU’s football team than Jane Hoeppner, and her presence will continue to have the same effect next season. Her late husband is remembered as an inspirational difference maker – she should continue to be viewed in the same light.\nSchedule tougher opponents. Getting to a bowl game is nice. Winning a bowl game would be phenomenal. Bowing out of the Insight Bowl as early as the Hoosiers did is like running the first 26 miles of a marathon and failing to squeak out the last 385 yards. The Hoosiers will need to play tougher out-of-conference opponents in order to be sufficiently prepared for bowl games of the future.\nStrive for consistency. I learned a long time ago that it's one thing to be able to do something, but it’s a whole new world to be able to do it consistently. That means consistently tackling, consistently establishing the run and consistently playing the entire game.\nFollow in the footsteps of your elders. I’d be hard pressed to name a player who played harder and with more passion this season than Tracy Porter. After taking a helmet-to-helmet collision with the 6-2, 300-pound Greg Brown in the first quarter, Porter laid motionless on the field, looking more mannequin than man. But you don’t know Porter very well if you were surprised to see him back on the field the next quarter.\nObviously disappointed after the game, Porter opened up and told reporters how he’d remember this year.\n“I’ll remember this season because guys never gave up through all the adversity we faced, through all the things that happened to us,” Porter said. “We were still able to accomplish the goals that we had, to play the next play, to ‘play 13.’ I know I’ll remember (my teammates) ‘cause they never gave up on me and I did the same and never gave up on them.”\nDon’t quit on this Hoosier team. They’ll be back next year.