Sometimes, even when we know they’re coming, things can take us by surprise.
It’s the flood of anxiety when your professors publish their Canvas pages mere hours before classes start. It’s the swelling, high-pitched whir of a Lime scooter as the rider races toward you from behind. Will he swerve around you, or is this where it all ends?
Yet for one beautiful Saturday in September, we receive a pleasant surprise. After months of waiting, IU football is back.
Hoosier fans will have to wait another week to pack into Memorial Stadium for an hour and a half before promptly leaving at halftime. But Saturday, their eyes will be stuck to the TV like a soaked t-shirt clinging to the back of a student on the way home from an afternoon class.
IU football travels to Iowa City, Iowa, on Sept. 4 to take on — you’ll never believe this — Iowa.
Gone are the openers with supposed cupcakes from the Mid-American Conference. This is real Big Ten football, and it’s equal parts exciting and concerning.
The Hoosiers enter the season hot off a 6-2 campaign in 2020 that shattered more glass ceilings than a hailstorm over a greenhouse. Victories over Penn State, Wisconsin and Michigan, as well as a near upset of Ohio State, catapulted IU into the nation’s minds and, in some cases, hearts.
Iowa, meanwhile, reached its 6-2 record in a far more pedestrian manner. After stumbling to 0-2, the Hawkeyes quietly ripped off six consecutive victories by an average of 22 points. Simply put, they are extremely competent if not all that flashy.
In many respects, Iowa is a model for what IU could become — a program that averages about eight wins per year led by a long tenured coach with undeniable upsides but clear limitations. That should probably qualify as good enough for most Hoosier fans. Nevertheless, I don’t think I’m wrong when I say a taste of success has made many diehards crave more.
It’s totally human to recalibrate expectations over time, but I encourage IU fans to practice moderation. Let’s imagine the Hoosiers do not in fact beat the Hawkeyes, who are favored to win at home by roughly a field goal. If IU begins its season 0-1, what will the mood be in Bloomington?
Will people be upset? They probably shouldn’t be. After all, what’s one more defeat to the school that has literally lost more games than any other in the history of college football?
I realize this is way too reductionist. Still, it’s important to maintain perspective. Remember January when Hoosier faithfuls scorned the powers that be for placing IU not in a New Year's Six bowl game, but the Outback Bowl against the 4-5 University of Mississippi? How embarrassing would it have been if IU supporters belittled the matchup for weeks on end, only for their team to lose to a squad largely composed of backups and the backups’ backups? Oh, wait.
I am far from an experienced sportswriter, but spewing my opinions into syndication has taught me one lesson over and over — no matter what, you always end up eating your words.
Occasionally, that’s a good thing. Little tastes sweeter than the words immediately following phrases like “I knew,” “I told you” or “I called it.” However, admitting you were wrong goes down about as smoothly as a bloody mary minus the alcohol.
If you want to shout from the mountaintops that IU is destined for greatness, go ahead. Unbridled optimism is as essential to college football as marching bands and brain trauma.
But if you’re going to bellow scorching hot takes, be sure to pour a tall glass of whole milk in case you have to gulp back those spicy claims. Maybe try delicately seasoning your claims with a hint of nuance. This will bring out the intense flavors of vindication if you wind up being correct. More importantly, it could mask the acrid taste of humiliation if you’re wrong.
