As Some "Fans" Want IU to Opt Out of the Outback Bowl, I Say Get Real, IU Needs This
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Written by Sammy Jacobs (@Hoosier_Huddle)
Tom Allen is building a brand in Bloomington. That’s what football programs have become and that’s how you get respect from those who look at the brand and thumb their noses. Allen’s Love Each Other mantra is the DNA of the brand he is building for Indiana football. You can print it on T-shirts, you can hear it in press conferences, read it in articles and see it on the field. That brand took off this year due to the fact that Indiana went 6-1 and provided the nation with some amazing highlights. Indiana needs to continue to build their brand up, which is why playing and winning the Outback Bowl is so important.
There have been a number of people, who claim to be IU football fans, who are saying IU should decline the opportunity to play in the Outback Bowl because it is insulting that the Hoosiers were left out of the Fiesta and passed over by the Citrus Bowl while being made to play a 4-5 Ole Miss team. To this line of thinking, I say, just stop.
Indiana this will be Indiana’s 13th bowl appearance ever, and the Outback Bowl is a well-respected bowl game in a hotbed for recruiting. The Hoosiers are also 29 years removed from their last bowl victory. Fans will complain about being left out of major bowls and being snubbed and all of that, but the fact is until IU is a better brand, all that will continue to happen.
Everyone is to blame for this, to varying degrees. The university basically let the football program die on the vine after Bill Mallory with a lack of facilities and investment. That has changed now. Indiana has poured money into the program. Losing takes its toll though and Indiana did a lot of that between 1997 and 2019. Fans saw wasted years of Antwaan Randle El, Levron Williams, James Hardy, Marcus Thigpen, Tevin Coleman and Nate Sudfeld to name a few. I get it, it’s frustrating.
It also doesn’t help that you have had reporters covering games, but writing articles on how miserable they are being at the games or plain just not paying attention to the game they’re assigned to cover. Why should people care about a program if the people who covered the team in the past don’t want to be there and act like it’s a chore? It’s tough to overcome that. It’s also why we started the site.
This brings me to the biggest change that needs to happen surrounding the Indiana football program…fan support. It’s not all on the fans, because losing stinks, but IU has won 14 games over the last two seasons and one would hope that Memorial Stadium would have been filled had this not been a pandemic year. However, the fanbase needs to step up. When bowl representatives are in the building and see 30,000 people in the stands for a 6-2 team that is playing a night game, it’s a red flag. Money matters, attendance matters and bowl reps take notice. Fans want all the amenities, but can’t find their way across the street from the parking lot. IU isn’t a bank, they need the revenue in order to put it back into the program. You want a new contract for Tom Allen? You think IU should increase the pool for assistant coaches’ pay? You want the bells and whistles? Show up.
Look, Indiana should have been in the Fiesta Bowl? No doubt. It would be nice to see college football reward deserving teams instead of following agendas and dollar signs, but that’s not the name of the game. College football, and I love it to death, is a business. Always has been and always will be. And in order to succeed in business one needs a great brand.
That brand can be solidified with a win in the Outback Bowl. It doesn’t matter if Ole Miss is 4-5 or that IU should be playing in a “bigger” game. This is the hand that IU was dealt and they cannot, nor should they, thumb their noses at this opportunity. This is how brands are built. The hope is IU is not a one-hit wonder. There will be other opportunities to make the New Year’s Six, that’s the goal. That all starts again on January 2nd against Ole Miss in the Outback Bowl, no matter what some fans suggest, because should Indiana lose, the fan base will have egg on their face and have to hear “I told you so” a billion times before another opportunity comes along.
Decline a bowl bid…come on.