There’s a familiar saying involving rumors, demises, and the exaggeration of the latter on account of the former that presciently summarize Big Ten football after week four of the 2014 season. A conference that had been tarred and feathered by pundits nationwide for a seemingly unending string of failures finally found its groove. In an almost eerily ironic way, the league’s arguably least successful program historically led the way while one of its most storied teams, in fact the winningest program in college football history, was the only roadblock in the way of a perfect weekend for the conference.
Indiana Upset Spearheads Weekend of Redemption for Big Ten
Not much was expected from Indiana on Saturday when they traveled to Columbia, MO to take on a Missouri Tigers team that was not only ranked 18th in the AP poll, but was also coming off a 2013 appearance in the SEC Championship Game where they lost to eventual national runners-up Auburn. Part of the dearth in expectations stemmed from a disastrous 45-42 loss the week before to Bowling Green which left Hoosier fans worried about another bowl-less postseason before even the month of October came around. If you watched that same Falcon team give up 644 rushing yards (you read that right, rushing, not total) in a 68-17 blowout loss to Wisconsin which ended about an hour before the IU game kicked off, it didn’t do anything to get your hopes up.
Nevertheless, the Hoosiers put forth a tremendous team effort that kept them in the game late. A defense that looked horribly shoddy in an end-of-game situation just a week earlier held their own down the stretch, making possible a game-winning touchdown drive that sealed an epic 31-27 upset of the Tigers. The space-time continuum that has been SEC dominance, especially over the Big Ten recently, experienced a noticeable amount of abstract causality when news of this final score reverberated throughout the college football universe.
Let’s put the result of this game into proper context. In an era of Paul Finebaum-style SEC chauvinism, which I’ll say is completely earned, you have an Indiana team that has appeared in exactly one bowl game over the past two decades make a foray into the hostile territory that is Faurot Field at Memorial Stadium and escape with a win over the defending runner-up of the sport’s best conference. For a program that’s had its share of adversity over the years, an historic triumph of this nature carries with it a meaning that I don’t think the Alabamas, Southern Cals and Michigans of the world can appreciate.
Speaking of Michigan, what has happened to the Wolverine program? First, they put up a goose egg on the offensive side of the ball against Notre Dame for the first time in the history of the series. Not more than two weeks later, they get thoroughly dominated by a Utah team that, if not for the efforts of the head coach who currently resides in that hated territory of Columbus, OH, would probably not be in the Pac-12. The epic rainstorm that flooded the field and halted play for a few hours is beginning to encapsulate the Brady Hoke era in Ann Arbor: it’s taking on water.
Other than that gaffe, every single Big Ten team in action found themselves on the correct side of the final score when all was set and done. Not bad for a league that went 0-8 against major conference opponents and Notre Dame in the two weeks prior. Indiana wasn’t the only team in the league to snatch an impressive road win despite stumbling the week before. After a last-second field goal doomed Iowa in their annual Cy-Hawk Trophy rivalry with Iowa State, the Hawkeyes rebounded on Saturday with a 24-20 win over Pittsburgh at Heinz Field. Maryland followed suit as regards Big Ten teams beating the ACC on the road, facing Syracuse in the Carrier Dome and coming out victorious 34-20.
Getting back to the Hoosiers, plenty of milestones regarding this program’s lack of success against teams ranked in the major polls fell with the upset of the Tigers. Indiana hadn’t registered a win against a Top 25 opponent since October 14, 2006 when they surprised 13th-ranked Iowa 31-28 in Bloomington. The last occurrence of an IU road win over a ranked team came way back on September 11, 2004 when they traveled to Eugene, OR, got off to a 23-0 lead over no. 24 Oregon in Autzen Stadium and held on for the eventual 30-24 shocker.
When a school like Indiana pulls off an unexpected win such as this, perhaps the most commonly asked of questions is: ‘What does this mean for the program going forward?’ I’ve continuously beaten the drum that 2014 is a bowl or bust season for the Hoosiers, given the current length of head coach Kevin Wilson’s tenure, the strengths on offense and the opportunity for a potentially improved defense to play their part. The confluence of these three factors played a key role in the positive result on Saturday, and will need to continue to do so if IU football wants to take the next step forward and become a program of substance in a Big Ten conference on the road towards redemption from a national perception standpoint.
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