Written by: TJ Inman (@TJHoosierHuddle)

Under normal circumstances, this would be a preview article about IU’s season opening matchup in Madison against the Wisconsin Badgers. The Hoosiers would be taking perhaps their most talented roster in decades to Camp Randall to battle the Badgers in a nationally televised game in primetime. Alas, these are not normal circumstances and as of publication, we don’t know if the Big Ten will even have a season. In lieu of a game to preview, we will recap one of the more surprising victories of the 21st century and rewind to October 12, 2002.

Despite having a generational player as his quarterback, Cam Cameron was never able to guide the Hoosiers to more than five victories. The Hoosiers turned to former LSU coach Gerry Dinardo to try and jumpstart one of FBS’s worst football programs. Dinardo inherited a team that had gone 5-6 but was doing some significant rebuilding. Indiana opened the campaign with an uninspiring win over William & Mary (which does NOT count for two victories) before losing convincingly to Utah and Kentucky. They closed out the non-conference slate with a win over Central Michigan and then got thumped by Ohio State. That put IU at 2-3 (0-1) while Wisconsin was ranked 23rd in the nation and sitting at 5-1. The Badgers had knocked off Fresno State, UNLV, West Virginia, Northern Illinois and Arizona before losing a close one to Penn State the week before coming to Bloomington.

Very little was expected from the Hoosiers in this contest and the game started out exactly as one would expect. IU trailed 16-10 at the half and then gave up the first 13 points of the second half and appeared headed for yet another blowout defeat at the hands of Wisconsin. Instead of folding up and getting rolled over, Gibran Hamdan led a comeback. The senior quarterback led a 70-yard drive near the end of the third quarter and connected with Courtney Roby for a 31-yard touchdown to make it 29-17. IU got the ball back and Hamdan threw a touchdown to Aaron Halterman for a short touchdown with 9:21 left that made it 29-24. Hamdan completed the comeback with a touchdown pass with a little more than two minutes remaining to give IU the lead. The Hoosiers converted the two-point conversion to take a 32-29 lead, Wisconsin turned the ball over on downs and IU had their first win over a ranked team since 2000. Hamdan finished with 310 yards and four touchdowns.

After the game, the senior quarterback was understandably excited about what the win meant. “It says a lot about where this program is headed. I know this is a step in the right direction and if we can keep building on it through the season we might be able to look back and say this was the turning point.”

Unfortunately, IU would go the opposite direction. The Hoosiers were no closer than 16 points to any of their remaining opponents, going 0-6 and finishing a miserable 3-9. Dinardo’s next two teams went 5-18 and he was fired after the 2004 season. The Indiana Hoosiers have not beaten the Wisconsin Badgers since that day as Barry Alvarez turned the Badgers into one of the Big Ten’s best programs.

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