Same Old song and dance

On Saturday November 7th, 2020 the #13 ranked Indiana Hoosiers welcomed the #23 ranked Michigan Wolverines into Memorial Stadium in Bloomington, Indiana. With the Hoosiers off to a 2-0 start to the season after beating the Penn State Nittany Lions in week #1 on a play that will be remembered for many years to come as, “The Reach.” After dismantling of a much improved Rutgers team there was an anxious, yet cautious excitement heading into game three on the schedule. You can literally feel it in the air on game day.

Far too often over the past few decades that anxious, yet cautious excitement has stemmed from what some may call false hope for this program to have turned the corner and becoming relevant in not only the Big 10, but also on a national level, only to be left feeling disappointed. Hoosier football fans have been let down time and time again and have every right to be cautiously optimistic heading into any season, or game for that matter.

With the non-conference portion of the season having been wiped away due to the Covid-19 pandemic Indiana was thrown right in the mix this season. There was no tune-up games. No cupcakes to pad the record. No gimme games to shake the rust off and find rhythm and timing on offense before the “big boys” appeared on the schedule. That escalated both the anxious, and the cautious part of 2020’s excitement heading into the Penn State game.

Yesterday’s game turned out to be a same old song and dance game that Hoosier fans have seen and learned to accept when the big boys of the Big 10 come calling. Well, there was one small difference in the Michigan game that not only Indiana fans, media experts, and the rest of the nation saw, and that is Indiana fans weren’t the ones left feeling disappointed. Indiana completely dominated the Wolverines for four quarters of football.

Just like the above picture of Indiana running back Stevie Scott III, Indiana’s entire team flexed their muscles on Saturday against Michigan. That is not a statement that you expect to hear if you’re a Hoosier fan. The long reviewed “Reach” play that ended the Penn State game kept some from believing completely as to how good this Tom Allen led Hoosier squad could be. Were they lucky? Was it a fluke? Those were some of the often asked questions following that win. Taking care of business in a Rutgers game that could have been considered a trap game didn’t alleviate much of the anxiousness. Winning games they should win hasn’t been the problem. Winning games they could win has been.

So the now 3-0 Indiana Hoosiers football team has crossed another step off of the list in the building process that head coach Tom Allen has put in place. Is Michigan having a down year? Maybe, but I don’t care. Indiana hadn’t beaten Michigan in football since 1987. That’s 33 years of futility to one opponent. So yeah, I could care less what kind of season the Wolverines are having. The experts believed they were good enough to be ranked preseason. And even kept them ranked after their loss to Michigan St. in their 2nd game of the season.

None of the GameDay crew chose Indiana to win while making their picks of the games on the slate for Saturday. They were all a little more on the believing this team was for real side after they punched Michigan in the mouth right out of the gate and kept their foot on the gas until the final seconds ticked off of the clock. Indiana was the aggressor, and played with a confidence that said they were the better team. They didn’t play knowing they could compete. They didn’t play knowing they could win. They played expecting to win.

So in wrapping this up I just want to say that on Saturday November 7th, 2020 the Indiana Hoosiers played as good, and as complete a football game as they have played in a long, LONG time. Were they perfect? No. Absolutely not. Which if you think about it, is a good thing. It gives hope that even for as dominate as they were on both sides of the ball, there is still room for improvement. Offensively. Defensively. Special teams. Coaching. Believing. All categories that it takes clicking on all cylinders to be a complete and damned good football team. All categories were check marked against Michigan. It may have been the same old song and dance on Saturday, but this time Indiana was leading.

Next up, Michigan State. Let the anxious excitement begin again…