Just a tiny depressed about March Madness without us again, so decided to treat myself. I think I was listening to alternate announcers, but the end of Miami game was hilarious. They were questioning Cig on using timeouts early, and especially the famous Mendoza run. All saying before it was a bad decision.
The other thing I did, which was really amusing was pull out my fall Lindy’s football guide. Yes I still buy them. They could not have been more wrong about things. Had Penn State and Texas for the championship. Had Clemson in final four. Had IU finishing 9th in conference!!!! Had Fernando as the 4th most impactful QB transfer. Wrote that we’d be trying to remain nationally relevant. Fernando not even mentioned with 10 players on Heisman watch. IU RANKED 32 in country. Doesn’t have Fernando listed as a top 5 QB draft pick. Only IU player listed was Mikail. Had us 6th in conference in portal hauls. Another spot has Fernando rated as 18th best QB in the country. Doesn’t have our defense or our offensive line listed in top 10 in country.
Anyhow, you get the point. It just reinforces what an absolute smash of a job our coaches and players did this year.
Or what a terrible job these guys and most press folks did. They all were so sure IUFB would revert back to the norm. I think they are believers now.Just a tiny depressed about March Madness without us again, so decided to treat myself. I think I was listening to alternate announcers, but the end of Miami game was hilarious. They were questioning Cig on using timeouts early, and especially the famous Mendoza run. All saying before it was a bad decision.
The other thing I did, which was really amusing was pull out my fall Lindy’s football guide. Yes I still buy them. They could not have been more wrong about things. Had Penn State and Texas for the championship. Had Clemson in final four. Had IU finishing 9th in conference!!!! Had Fernando as the 4th most impactful QB transfer. Wrote that we’d be trying to remain nationally relevant. Fernando not even mentioned with 10 players on Heisman watch. IU RANKED 32 in country. Doesn’t have Fernando listed as a top 5 QB draft pick. Only IU player listed was Mikail. Had us 6th in conference in portal hauls. Another spot has Fernando rated as 18th best QB in the country. Doesn’t have our defense or our offensive line listed in top 10 in country.
Anyhow, you get the point. It just reinforces what an absolute smash of a job our coaches and players did this year.
i too became very bored with the BB season. I had a hip replaced in February so I went back and watched every game for the first 16 days of recovery. What a wonderful thing to have to look forward to each day. Made the whole thing so much better.
Nothing will ever take away the magic of this season. I haven’t had to go back into my Hulu archive for a re-watch yet!
But I don’t think all of the criticisms were unfair. I thought the gameplay at Iowa was nuts, we went in there and tried to beat Iowa at their own game. Took a real gutsy effort to pull that one off.
As for the Miami game, the sequence before half time was mind boggling from a clock management perspective. The only time I’ve ever seen the moment seem too big for this staff.
Well, 2025 was the best possible shut up the haters season ever. 16-0 +479 point differential -- even the most ardent IUFB haters had to cry uncle.
I still buy the magazines and have had many laughs at them the last two years. I am currently re-watching the entire Big Ten football season on B1G+ and YouTube. Nobody really knows anything until mid-September. Heck, even some IU fans and writers from TOS were saying this wasn't a CFP team. I have been watching a lot of highlight videos too. What a magical season and what a time to be in where we can go back and watch it.
IU didn't fully look like a cfp team against Old Dominion. Gave up 2 long TD runs and only scored 27. Fair or not, people expect bigger wins vs Sun Belt teams.
Of course, the team improved and Old Dominion probably wasn't as bad as people thought.
I don't buy sports magazines. Most of the opinions/rankings are based on nothing more than looking at the team names.
IU didn't fully look like a cfp team against Old Dominion. Gave up 2 long TD runs and only scored 27. Fair or not, people expect bigger wins vs Sun Belt teams.
Of course, the team improved and Old Dominion probably wasn't as bad as people thought.
I don't buy sports magazines. Most of the opinions/rankings are based on nothing more than looking at the team names.
ODU definitely ended up being a better team than the preseason/early-season haters were saying. The wild thing is that aside from the two long runs by the QB, ODU was absolutely dominated that game. It didn't show up on the scoreboard in blowout fashion, but the casual sports media can't/won't look at much past the scores and a cursory look through the box score. My craziest ODU game memory for me is that early in the season, EJ Williams was getting targeted more than anyone. That really changed within a couple of weeks.
https://www.espn.com/college-football/matchup/_/gameId/401752806
@hurryinghoosiers My point is that you cant tell much after one week and people so want to be first on a hot take than anything else.
While the rankings and conference picks may be mostly blind. A lot of the team previews are written by beat writers.
@hurryinghoosiers My point is that you cant tell much after one week and people so want to be first on a hot take than anything else.
While the rankings and conference picks may be mostly blind. A lot of the team previews are written by beat writers.
Yup. I don't think you can tell much at all until conference games start. And even then it won't tell you how the conferences compare to each other because there tends to only be a handful of P4 match-ups in non-conference schedule.
Everyone pretends the SEC is better than the Big Ten simply because more people rank their teams in the preseason. It's easier to stay ranked if every win is against a ranked team (big boost) and every loss is against another ranked team (minor drop). But then the truth comes out in bowl/playoff season and it turns out that maybe more Big Ten teams should have been ranked all along.
Yes, in my rewatch I also noticed that EJ was getting more targets in the early games. I think a lot of that was maybe other teams were doubling the other two guys and/or putting their best defenders on them?IU didn't fully look like a cfp team against Old Dominion. Gave up 2 long TD runs and only scored 27. Fair or not, people expect bigger wins vs Sun Belt teams.
Of course, the team improved and Old Dominion probably wasn't as bad as people thought.
I don't buy sports magazines. Most of the opinions/rankings are based on nothing more than looking at the team names.
ODU definitely ended up being a better team than the preseason/early-season haters were saying. The wild thing is that aside from the two long runs by the QB, ODU was absolutely dominated that game. It didn't show up on the scoreboard in blowout fashion, but the casual sports media can't/won't look at much past the scores and a cursory look through the box score. My craziest ODU game memory for me is that early in the season, EJ Williams was getting targeted more than anyone. That really changed within a couple of weeks.
https://www.espn.com/college-football/matchup/_/gameId/401752806
Also, I noticed that EJ came up hobbling a couple times midway through the season. I wonder if he had something happen that limited him a bit. Of course after we saw what Charlie B. could do, EJ’s role was going to be limited, but that came later.
Anyone else still feel like you’re gonna wake up one morning and find out it was all just a dream? I can’t shake it….
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