Fifty years after IU’s undefeated champs … a Rose Bowl

• Indiana University’s football program has a long history of losses and disappointments.
• New coach Curt Cignetti has revitalized the team using transfers and NIL funds.
• IU is now the No. 1 seed in the college football playoffs and will play in the Rose Bowl.

BLOOMINGTON — On Sept. 14, 2024, Indiana University’s football team was scheduled to play UCLA in Pasadena. In a stadium called the Rose Bowl.

The week before, I sat at the bar in Binkley’s Kitchen in Broad Ripple and watched the Hoosiers blast Western Illinois 77-3. I pondered, should I book a flight to LAX to watch, perhaps for the only time in my life, the Hoosiers play in the Rose Bowl?

As a tormented sports fan, I had overcome dozens of forlorn seasons to witness my Chicago Bears and Indianapolis Colts win Super Bowls in 1986 and 2007, and in 2005, the seeming impossible, a World Series title for my winning ugly Chicago White Sox.

But IU’s football team? With at 715 losses the most in NCAA Division 1 history? C’mon, man.

The enduring pain of Hoosier fandom, spanning decades since IU’s only New Year’s Day Rose Bowl in 1968 when O.J. Simpson’s USC Trojans won 14-3, has been palpable. We share one of the smallest states in the Big Ten with Purdue and Notre Dame.

There were lingering ghosts. When legendary Ohio State coach Woody Hayes lost his first game to IU 32-10 in 1951, he vowed he would never lose to the Hoosiers again. He ended up going 22-0-1 since. IU didn’t defeat Ohio State again until 1987, after Hayes had died in March of that year. We watched Coach Lee Corso pose for a first half team photo with the scoreboard showing IU leading Ohio State, only to suffer yet another blow-out loss. Corso’s weekly TV show featured him rising out of a coffin, declaring to Sammy Terry vibe, “We’re not dead yet!”

There was IU’s most successful football coach, Bill Mallory, going 0-11 in his first season. There had been IU’s annual traipse through the Big Ten’s murderer’s row Eastern Division where we had to play Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State and Penn State … every year. And then came a second wave of brutality, with USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington joining what had been a Midwestern conference.

There was the year runningback Anthony Thompson was poised to win the Heisman Trophy, only to lose the Oaken Bucket game to Purdue, finishing with a 5-6 record. No Heisman.

The first time I thought I had a glimpse of an Indiana University Big Ten football title came in November 1987 when the Hoosiers invaded Michigan State with the winner destined for the Rose Bowl. I entered the packed stadium press elevator and it lurched into motion, only to come to a halt between floors. As the temperature escalated, we all glanced at the ceiling that had no escape hatch. About seven minutes later and with a hint of panic, the car began to move, and as the doors opened into the press box, we all sprang out to begin our reporting.

By dusk, Michigan State throttled the Hoosiers 27-3. A New Year’s Day Rose Bowl berth would have to wait another 38 years.

Coach Curt Cignetti was hired in November 2023, just weeks after IU’s legendary basketball coach Bob Knight died. Cignetti told fans at Assembly Hall, “Google me. I win.”

Coach Cig has created this IU phoenix with James Madison University and portal transfers, as well as NIL money, leveling the playing field with the SEC. Earlier this month, IU finally defeated Ohio State 13-10 to win its first Big 10 title since 1967. Quarterback Fernando Mendoza finally brought a Heisman Trophy back to B-ton. Cignetti unveiled his 2026 recruiting class that is studded with a half dozen four-star recruits.

Yes, IU could become a football power house.

“Great win; gutty game; hard-fought, physical football game,” Cignetti said after defeating Ohio State. “Wasn’t perfect by either team. We found a way to survive it, made the plays when we had to. And I thought, once again, when the game was on the line, you know, Fernando was throwing dimes and Charlie Becker was showing up making big plays and (Elijah) Sarratt with a big touchdown, our defense created a lot of issues.

“It’s another step we need to take as a program,” Coach Cig continued. “It’s a great win, obviously. And we’re going to go in the playoffs as the No. 1 seed. And a lot of people probably thought that wasn’t possible. But when you get the right people and you have a plan and they love one another and play for one another and they commit, anything’s possible. And I think that’s what you saw happen here.”

He added, “I’ve got three and a half weeks to get this team humbled for the playoffs.”

Yes, the playoffs, where the top-ranked Hoosiers are the No. 1 seed, scheduled to play Alabama’s Crimson Tide on New Year’s Day … in the Rose Bowl. The Hoosier Hundred Marching Band will be featured in the Tournament of Roses Parade.

It all is cascading around us like a dream, 50 years after Bob Knight led the undefeated Hoosiers basketball team to an NCAA championship.

The Hoosiers are now being mentioned in the same sentence with the words “national football title.”

IU a football national champion? Perhaps there’s as much a chance of that happening as the Chicago Bears building a stadium in northwest Indiana.

Brian A. Howey is a senior writer and columnist for Howey Politics Indiana/State Affairs.