Indiana's Run Gives Game Hope
A team of under-recruited, over-achievers dominated the season to show the sport what is still possible within the concept of team.
In a college football world where everything off the field feels chaotic and stuck in a perpetual state of flux, Indiana gave us something we all needed. They gave us an underdog story in an era when greed reigns supreme through NIL, free agency-style transfers, and a never-ending pursuit of roster upgrades. They gave us likable stars — including Heisman Trophy–winning quarterback Fernando Mendoza — who didn’t feel manufactured or cynically assembled in a lab. They gave us a traveling fan base rooted in the largest alumni network in the country, starving for something, anything, to latch onto athletically.
They got it in the form of one of the most improbable runs this sport has ever seen.
Most of you know the statistic by now: no program in college football history entered the year with more all-time losses than Indiana. And now they sit atop the sport as national champions. You can’t make it up, and I’m thrilled it’s not fiction. It’s real. It’s ours. And it’s awesome.
We needed this. We needed something unexpected, something pure, something that reminded us why we fell in love with this sport in the first place. Indiana delivered in a way I couldn’t have scripted in my wildest dreams.
The Personal Part
I’m a kid from the Midwest. I grew up with Big Ten football. My grandfather George took me to countless games in Evanston to watch Northwestern. Every summer, Grandpa and Grandma Colangelo would take me to Dyche Stadium so we could walk up to the ticket window and pick out a couple of games for Grandpa and me to attend in the fall.
I always circled the big ones like Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, Wisconsin. Never once did I pick Indiana. Why would I? They were irrelevant. A nothing burger in a world of giants. An afterthought in a state where the word “Hoosiers” evokes one sport and one sport alone: basketball.
Which is why this is so magnificent.
It feels like 1995 at Northwestern when the Wildcats shocked the country, won the Big Ten, and went to the Rose Bowl. Only this is bigger. This was 16-0. This was perfection. This ended not in Pasadena, but in college football’s land of milk and honey — a national championship.
A roster of under-recruited dudes came together, played their butts off, embraced the concept of team, and did the unprecedented.
The Bigger Picture
Once you let it sink in that Indiana is the national champion, you start to realize something uncomfortable but true: college football, in its current form, might actually be more compelling than ever. It needs some TLC and some adult supervision, but the on-field product has never been more unpredictable, more chaotic, and more interesting.
The irony is that off the field, the last several years have been brutal. The old model was cracking anyway, but once the Supreme Court forced the sport to modernize in the summer of 2021, the economic side of college football turned into Wall Street — only with worse regulation and more tampering.
It can feel soulless. It can feel icky. It can feel disconnected from the game so many of us fell in love with.
Coaches openly shop rosters. Players enter portals like day traders. Lane Kiffin can lean into the chaos and somehow be celebrated for it. None of this is “wrong,” per se, everyone is operating within the rules — but it feels disconnected from the essence of the sport.
Why I Care
I care about college football because of the art of the game at its core. It’s competition, pride, marching-band musical theater, tailgating-as-religion, and a rave all wrapped into one. The cultural significance is unmatched in American sports. There’s nothing else like it.
The connection between a school, its football team, and its alumni runs deeper than any pro sports loyalty. College means leaving home for the first time. It’s where you grow up. It’s where you learn who you are. Going back to campus isn’t just nostalgia — it’s going home.
Indiana reminded us of that. They reminded us that as long as the games are played, as long as there is a scoreboard and a band and an alma mater to sing, the sport can still produce magic.
And for the first time in a long time, college football gave us something money, NIL, portals, and lawyers can’t manufacture:
Hope.
Perfectly said 👏👏👏
Brilliant close to the story. You are a real Radio (theater of the mind) talent - and now I see you can write prose as well. MTSU needs to promote you!