The phrase is so much more than just another dumb sports cliché. For IU this weekend, the phrase is the truth.
This is a must win.
For a college football team, every coach and player will tell you every game is a must win.
But this game against Minnesota on Saturday at Memorial Stadium really is a must win for the Hoosiers. It’s not hyperbole. IU has to win this game to go to a bowl game.
Since IU beat Penn State, it appeared as if the path to a bowl game for IU was easily paved.
IU just had to win its three remaining home games against Minnesota, Illinois and Purdue, and the Hoosiers would secure their first bowl berth since 2007.
Any road victories would just be gravy.
At the time, that appeared to be fairly simple. But then Minnesota upset then-No. 25 Nebraska last week 34-23.
Now, it doesn’t look so simple.
Before the Penn State game I wrote a column similar to this.
It said all IU’s bowl hopes hinged on beating the Nittany Lions. “This game — the fifth game of the year — is the make-or-break game for the Hoosiers this season,” the Oct. 4 column read. “A win means IU would just have to beat Minnesota, Illinois and Purdue at home to become bowl eligible.
“All of these are winnable games, especially considering they’re at Memorial Stadium.”
But now this is the make-or-break game. That’s what happens when a team is toeing the line of being bowl eligible.
Every game IU is supposed to win, it has to win.
It has to beat Minnesota, Illinois and Purdue. It has to go to a bowl.
Why? Because this team is too talented to not go to a bowl. And with the way senior wide receiver Kofi Hughes, senior safety Greg Heban and senior kicker Mitch Ewald talked at Big Ten Media Day in Chicago back in July, this team has wanted to be the team that makes the transformation — the team that makes the
breakthrough.
Back in July, Heban’s face lit up thinking about all the new defensive talent surrounding him.
Hughes couldn’t stop talking about how deep the wide receiver position is.
There was something in the way they talked, something that made you want to believe this is the team.
And ever since then, I’ve maintained this is a bowl-quality team.
But the Gophers aren’t just going to roll over and let the Hoosiers do what they need to do to make up for the last five years of football futility, especially after getting a win against a ranked opponent last week.
This isn’t going to be an easy game, despite what the Vegas insiders say.
The early lines have IU (3-4) favored to beat Minnesota (6-2) by 10.
Something about that just doesn’t quite make sense to me. Minnesota has a hot hand right now. The game doesn’t look as easy as it did several weeks ago.
“We got a good challenge with Minnesota coming in,” IU Coach Kevin Wilson said. “You guys probably caught the radar. They have been playing well, a bowl team a year ago, solid challenge and they will be a good test for us.”
This isn’t a test only worth 20 percent of your semester grade, though.
This is a test IU must pass.
My editors hate me for speaking in clichés, but it’s the only way to characterize this game.
It’s a must win.
My prediction Though I’m not as confident as the guys in Vegas, I think IU finds a way to get this W.
It helps that the Hoosiers had a bye week and some time to collect themselves, and it helps that Minnesota had an emotional game against
Nebraska.
But it’s still not going to be pretty.
A win is a win is a win.
I’ve got IU 48,
Minnesota 42.
— robhowar@indiana.edu Follow columnist Robby Howard on Twitter @robbyhoward1.
