Don't Look Back in Anger

It's not necessarily a metaphor, BUT... (Michigan Athletics)

"Slip inside the eye of your mind
Don't you know you might find
A better place to play?
You said that you'd never been
But all the things that you've seen
Slowly fade away"

--"Don't Look Back in Anger" by Oasis, the fourth single off of the 1995 album (What’s The Story) Morning Glory?

I don't really think there's that much left to be said about this season.  The most interesting thing about this game was that Michigan was in it for far longer than I think anyone nationally or locally expected.  A full credit to the Michigan defense for stepping up in a spot despite still being without Will Johnson.  Holding a very explosive Indiana team to 246 yards and 20 points feels like an accomplishment and one that a team with even a moderately functional offense could have taken advantage of in some way to secure the win.

But when Zeke Berry gives you the utter gift of an early third-quarter interception at the IU 7 and you move the ball exactly four yards with an uninspired set of run calls, forcing you to settle for a field goal, well, it wasn't the harbinger that this was not going to be your day, but it does not help.  The reality is reasonable to see in the quantum reality where Michigan gets a touchdown there.  Now it's 17-10 Indiana.  Michigan still gets its field goal (17-13 IU) and on the touchdown, doesn't go for 2, they kick the extra points and Michigan takes a 21-17 lead.  When Indiana gets the ball back, now they have to drive the field for a touchdown, and maybe they do, and maybe they don't, they really had not been under that kind of pressure all year, but maybe Michigan finds a way to pull it off.  But it was not to be.  It's all the same problems, but with new and maddening wrinkles, like Sherrone Moore's failure to immediately call a timeout after the first Lawson run when Indiana was in run-out-the-clock mode.  Mistakes are being made all over the team and it's so frustrating, especially because this team is not good enough to overcome basic mistakes.

But a week off and a now titanic Big House showdown with a likely 4-6 Northwestern team that will, more than likely, be coming off a loss to Ohio State at Wrigley in order to see if Michigan can get bowl eligible.  It's the reality that has been staring Michigan in the face since the conclusion of the Washington game, and knowing it's the truth does not make it any less frustrating.  We'll just have to hope Michigan can put enough together against the Wildcats to squeak into the postseason.

Tales from the Spreadsheet

• 20-15 is NOT a Scorigami; this is the third occurrence, joining 1959 Missouri and 1967 Minnesota.)
• 53,082 were in attendance (the largest Memorial Stadium crowd for a Michigan/Indiana game ever.)
  
  
• Michigan moves to 62-11 all-time against Indiana University.
• Michigan moves to 11-8-0 all-time on November 9 (the previous November 9 losses include 2013 Nebraska, 1996 at Purdue, and a 4-0 loss to Harvard in 1895.)
  
  
• Michigan moves to 7-9-0 when scoring exactly 15 points.
• Michigan moves to 24-21-1 all-time when allowing 20 points to the opposition.
• Michigan has lost 11 games all-time by precisely 5 points, most recently, the 2012 Ohio State game, where we learned Brady Hoke teams had a weird knack for keeping it close against superior Ohio State teams.
  

 

Night Still Comes

I sometimes worry he's too good at his job, but the feeling passes.  (Patrick Barron)

My brain makes drugs to keep me slow

A hilarious joke for some dead pharaoh

But now, not even the masons know

What drug will keep night from coming

There are so many tools that are made for my hands

But the tide smashes all my best-laid plans to sand

And there's always someone to say it's easy for me

But I revenge myself all over myself

There's nothing you can say to me

You never held it at the right angle

 --"Night Still Comes" by Neko Case from her 2013 album The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You

It's fascinating to realize that the Big Ten schedule set up to have Michigan face Indiana 364 days after the previous meeting, allowing us a moment to take stock of what was, what is, and what can be through this lens.

Last year at this time, if we're even allowed to acknowledge it, Michigan had just dropped a game at home to Michigan State that it felt like it had no business losing and then was staring at an Indiana team that was feeling itself.  The years of almosts and #CHAOSTEAM had congealed into something dangerous.  Indiana made Michigan pay, a 38-21 victory for the Hoosiers that seemed to be some form of retribution for all of the other narrow escapes Michigan had pulled off over Indiana since the Crimson and Cream's most recent win in 1987.  Indiana looked like a team ascendant.  Michigan looked like a team lost and sinking fast.

The historically inclined among Michigan fans like to look for the throughlines, the things that remain true over the years, and the Indiana streak was one of the last great streaks that had survived everything, again, sometimes in "I cannot believe that happened" fashion, somewhat tattered and worn, but it survived.  Last night's game kept at least one piece of that line alive, that Indiana's last victory in Ann Arbor occurred before men set foot on the moon.  

Last night's Michigan performance was not stellar.  It was also not awful.  There were some high points: Hassan Haskins' 62-yard run that Indiana seemed to point to as the turning point in postgame quickly comes to mind, so does Cade's nice long bomb to Johnson late to really just put the finishing touches on things.  There were so low points: the time out on the 4th and 1 "fake" that actually would have worked for six yards had it been snapped a fraction of a second earlier, the delay of game penalty right after the long Haskins run, the surprise Indiana "injuries" that not only seemed to try to break Michigan's momentum but also lead to long Fox commercial breaks, the continued red zone woes, touchdown relative, that do not seem to be any closer to fixing.  

But this was a game that was in little doubt at any point according to math.  Math watches games and knows things.  We watch games and we feel things.

We see the conga line to the injury tent.  We see the small details that feel like a foreshadowing of some larger flaw in the narrative down the line.  The math is based on history, we see the game as a way to gaze into the future.  But the history was present in the Big House last night.  The return of the late 1990s staple, QB waggle, on the first touchdown to Schoonmaker, Michigan's first touchdown pass to a TE this year (they liked it so much they went back to the tight end for the final score as well).  The way that Michigan's injury luck seems to suddenly run out against Indiana...(though that might have more of a reason than just the universe deciding things).  All of it just seems wrong, and then to add night game, and well, maybe we've never held it at the right angle.

In the end, Indiana's in the books again for another year.  All of Michigan's goals are ahead of it.  Let's just hope there are enough healthy bodies left to finish the job.

New Routine

Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh reacts towards a game official after a call during the second half of U-M's 38-21 loss on Saturday, Nov. 7, 2020, in Bloomington, Indiana.  (Doug McSchooler/AP)

It doesn't hurt at all and I couldn't figure out why.  It's not because I don't care, because I do.  Perhaps not as passionately as I did in my youth, but I still care, but it is a level of caring tempered by realities both small and larger. It's not that it wasn't expected, hardly, I was going to be fully and completely shocked if Michigan managed to pull this off.  No, it was just, it was a game, one of several, being played at noon on Saturday, and Michigan, like a lot of teams in 2020, did not look very good in their playing of it.

It was the last connection to be severed.  Every connection to the Bo era had been broken but one.  That Michigan's last loss to Indiana was in 1987.  A winning streak begun in the dying embers of the Schembechler era, carried through Moeller and Carr, inexplicably moved through the direst ebbs of the Rodriguez and Hoke years, and in spite of some wild endings, carried through the Harbaugh years.  All things must pass* and yesterday in Bloomington, it finally did.  That cutting of that link did perhaps reminds us, finally, that the past is truly in the past.  We can honor the past, celebrate the past, but we cannot be beholden to the past, held prisoner by it.

Indiana earned it, there's no doubt.  Indiana looks like a team in control of what it wants to do and making it happen.  Michigan looks like a team that thinks that they can show up and play and that should be enough.  I am sure that people much better versed in interpersonal group dynamics and 
the like can explain better what is going on with Michigan, but right now, it's just not a very good football team and time is running out for it to get better.

Until next week.




*-unless you're Ohio State, which it was pointed out in an AFLAC trivia question last night that they are they only team in the AP Poll era to never have a 5 game losing streak.

Jumper

If one has earned the right to stunt on 'em, stunt on 'em. (Tyler Carlton)

In 1969, Michigan was 7-2 after a 51-6 demolition of Iowa at Kinnick.  They had lost two games early in October, a non-conference game against Missouri and falling victim to the Curse of Paul Bunyan in Bo's debut in their match-up with Michigan State.  This meant that Bo, in his first year in Ann Arbor, would need to beat Ohio State to match Bump's 1968 win total.  Even though it was pretty much a given that Michigan would be heading to Pasadena regardless of what happened in the not-as-yet dubbed Big House on that November 22nd, the 12th ranked Wolverines were facing a daunting task.  Ohio State hadn't lost in 22 games.  They were being called one of the all-time great teams, even better than their national championship winning predecessors.  There was no way Michigan was winning this game, 17 point underdogs that they were.

Trap game, they yelled.  Indiana's really good!  #9Windiana was lurking.  Harbaugh teams always have trouble at the Quarry.  And early on, it was holding to form.  Indiana looked really good picking on Dax Hill on their first scripted drive, and though Michigan responded immediately (yeah Ronnie Bell!), the short punt after the interception and Indiana's subsequent touchdown generated that oddly queasy, yet wholly expected feeling.  That Giles Jackson didn't hear a whistle did not matter as he was down 62 yards earlier, he played the game until he was told not to do so.  That Shea mixed it up and hit a bunch of receivers made it feel good, but the circus catch by DPJ was a thing of beauty to tie the game back up.

This catch by @dpeoplesjones will make you loop this video. 🔥@UMichFootball answers again: pic.twitter.com/aCXbLu7Nk0

— Big Ten Network (@BigTenNetwork) November 23, 2019

From that point forward, it was the Nico Show, with three touchdowns, each beautiful in their own way, be it the catch and GO for 76 yards for his second or the repeat of last week immediately after a turnover for the third and the nail in the Hoosiers coffin.

Plenty was said today, on GameDay, during the game, about just how different this Michigan team has looked since halftime of the Penn State game.  The numbers bear it out.  It feels different.  The BPONE doesn't settle in.  It looms, but it gets up and leaves a lot earlier than you expect it to do so.  But it also gives Michigan fans hope.  Because that moment 50 years ago this past Friday is our origin myth, or at least, the reboot version of it.  It's setting up to be close enough to what it was if you squint a little.  Is it all just a little bit of history repeating?  Maybe, probably not.  But it's not fun to not hope.  It was utterly improbable that Michigan could upset Ohio State 50 years ago until it happened.  I know that was then, but it could be again.

Beat OSU.

Daylight Fading

The sacks were not commonplace today, but they came in very opportune moments. (David Guralnick/Detroit News)

She said "Everybody loves you, "
She says, "Everybody cares"
But all the things I keep inside myself
They vanish in the air
If you tell me that you'll wait for me
I'll say I won't be here
"Daylight Fading" by Counting Crows, from the 1996 album Recovering the Satellites 


23 in a row overall.  20 in a row in the Big House with an average score of 38-15.  But dang it if every single one of those feels like one of the most annoying wins of the year.  But the key word there is wins.  The only significant streak that has passed down the great chain of being of Michigan football from Bump to Bo to Mo to Lloyd to RichRod to Hoke to Harbaugh is that Michigan does not lose to Indiana at home (even more amazing, Michigan doesn't lose to Indiana on the road.  It's only ever happened twice: 1959 and 1987, that's the list.)  But the critical thing here is that they are wins.  History rarely asks you how you won, but rather did you win?  That does not deprive us of the narrative in the moment, because in the moment, dang this was annoying.

Jake "Mad-Eye" Moody kicked six field goals which is simultaneously awesome (Rise up Western Wayne County!) and well, maddening (field goals 33, 32, 31, 30, 29, and 23 speak to an offense that could not close in the red zone.)  Jake Moody personally outscored the entire Michigan State/Nebraska game.  Yet, it's not like Michigan's offense was "bad", per se, they had 457 yards of total offense.  It just wasn't coming when it was needed.  If let's say the Patterson to Gentry pass early in the second quarter is held on to and, oh, I don't know, the Indiana player doesn't "unintentionally" kick the ball as its being reset near the end of the half, Michigan maybe has 7-11 more points and this looks and feels much better.  But no, this is the Indiana game and while Indiana may no longer hold the mantle of #CHAOSTEAM, it has now embraced the mantle of #jerksquad.  Said squad was enabled by the maddening and baffling officiating decisions of the John O'Neill crew.  (As a rule, I should not know refereeing crews just as I don't want to know the name of our long snapper, though Camaron Cheeseman gets a special dispensation for drawing the roughing the snapper penalty against Wisconsin, I digress.)

As I say so often, college football only lives in the past and in the future, never in the present so it can be reasonably understood that yesterday's matchup, already viewed by many as a last perfunctory hurdle before The Game, cause many in the Michigan fanbase and brain trust to worry about "What does this mean for next week?"  It's a reasonable question, but it's also one that ignored that Ohio State looked eminently ordinary against Maryland in the early game slot.  This game likely has little meaning for next week, save the notion that Michigan has some nice "don't do this" film and got some practice against a team that likes to tempo.

Indiana is in the books for another year (thank goodness.  We'll do it all again in Bloomington before OSU next year.)  The Game is here.  Beat Ohio State.

Running to Stand Still

"Higgy, Higgy, Higgy, can't you see, sometimes your runs just hypnotize me."  (AP/AJ Mast)

"Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"

--Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures Through the Looking Glass

I was hoping to never use "Running to Stand Still" as a title in my themed year of U2 column names, but sometimes the mix of results, feeling, and the weather put you in a mood.  I think any reasonable observer of Michigan football knew, or at worst, strongly suspected that this week's game would be a microcosm of the same issues we saw last week, perhaps just without the squall line blowing through in the second half.  Michigan's defense would look all-world, Michigan's offense would be hard to look at.  For the most part, this was on point, but there were some surprises.  Karan Higdon got to be the workhorse out of the backfield and was rewarded with 200 yards (the first Michigan player since Denard to do this) and three touchdowns, a couple of which were honest to goodness attractive plays.  The defense continued to be disruptive, but the surfeit of penalties from a flag-happy crew, including what felt like a moment of "I've never seen this before" three on one play made it difficult to know if the defense was playing well in spite of the penalties or if the penalties were a symptom of a larger issue.  Having survived an ugly second half rock fight, Michigan was up 10 points with four minutes left to play.  

Then things fell apart.  A 53-yard punt return on a 46-yard punt is suboptimal when you're trying to nurse a lead.  Giving up a 12-yard pass on third down, suboptimal.  At that point, the Indiana touchdown was a mere formality and after the chaos of an onside kick that could have gone either way on the review, one still felt that a three-point lead with three minutes left should not be worrisome, except Michigan's offense had not exactly shown that they could burn clock and get the one first down they needed to ice the game.  So when Brad Robbins punt went into the end zone AND the long snapper gets called for holding, next thing you know, Indiana, who just needs a field goal to tie, gets the ball on their own 30, needing to go about 45 yards in 65 seconds, and sure enough, Griffin Oakes (current Big Ten leader for "player whose name sounds most like a MHSAA Division 5 football playoff qualifier since Perry Hills has graduated from Maryland) put a 46 yard field goal just inside the right upright, and we were off to overtime for the second straight trip to Bloomington.

Overtime began and Higdon pulled a Barry Sanders-esque "nothing doing here in my original running lane, hit my blocker, bounce, bounce, burn, score" run to open overtime.  It put me in mind of Tom Brady's pass to Shawn Thompson in the 2000 Orange Bowl, getting the ball first and getting the touchdown and saying "OK, your turn."  Michigan's defense responded after an initial, Michigan school record-setting sixteenth penalty calling a pass interference that would move the ball to the 12, (which the ESPN play-by-play on the website does not acknowledge), standing firm, getting into Peyton Ramsey's face, and finally forcing an interception, with Tyree Kinnel grabbing the ball and allowing every Michigan fan to finally exhale after something like four hours of hoping things would not go sideways.

It is not fair to complain about a win, because ultimately, that is the goal of any game, win the game.  There are no style points, win the game, minimize the number of people hurt, and move on to the next one.  Yet, in discussion with another Michigan fan, I was struck that this team is not "fun."  The defense is fun because it's aggressive and makes plays, (how could you not enjoy the Hurst/Gary/Winovich pursuit machine) but the positives of that group are essentially wiped out by the...I am loathe to say ineptitude, but the just general sense of ennui one gets in watching the group.  The offensive line hole left by the late-Hoke cliff, the youth of the receivers, the...interesting decision making of the quarterbacks, all of it negates the positive feelings of some excellent runs by Higdon.  It's not fair of me as a fan to want things to be "fun", because that isn't the job.

But, if it's "not fun", Saturday can turn into a frustrating slog of mostly hoping Michigan doesn't lose.  Hoping Michigan doesn't lose is not the same as hoping Michigan wins.  When you're rooting for Michigan to win, there's joy.  When Michigan doesn't lose, there is only relief.  But, there should have been joy today.  Winning today earned Michigan its 500th win in Big Ten play.  Winning today kept the streak alive, dating all the way back to 1987, the 22nd straight win over Indiana, the only major streak started by Bo that persists to this day, having somehow survived the RR/Hoke years.  These things are worth being happy about, even if it feels like relief is the primary sentiment of the day's result.  But the return of Harbaugh to Ann Arbor has brought higher expectations than just "survive an Indiana upset bid". The balance of expectations and possibilities within this year are creating a frustration that is palpable in ways I did not think possible.

Night in Happy Valley looms.  The defense will hopefully keep us in any game, even if the odds seem long.

Cold Front

A beautiful sight, we're happy tonight... (Photo by Isaiah Hole)

Chaos, we must be reminded, disguises itself as normal, but just ever so askew.  It does not walk up to you as a manic street preacher, foretelling the end times and calling for your repentance.  That would be too easy.  Then again, maybe it wouldn't.  The person telling you the truth that you didn't want to hear could be and would be easily dismissed and then you would be shocked, shocked, to learn that they were, in fact, telling you the truth.

For all of our calling Indiana #CHAOSTEAM, we tended to presume that Michigan would bounce back from the disappointment of that night at Kinnick, and rally behind John O'Korn and figure out how to get by Indiana, a team Michigan has not lost to since 1987, and has not lost in Ann Arbor to since 1967.  But the same problems from last week, from the last month, really, were cropping up.  Slightly off target passes, bad luck on spots, every toss-up ball to an Indiana receiver managing to be good for a solid gain.  By the end of a cold and blustery first half at Michigan Stadium, only Kenny Allen's punting seemed to be going right and Michigan and its fans felt fortunate that if this was the first time all season that they were going into the locker room at halftime down, it was only a 7-3 margin.

So the Chaos did come, but, as chaos is wont to do, it came from something seemingly random.  On a third and eight, John O'Korn used his feet, the one part of his game that everyone seemed to agree was stronger that Speight's, and scrambled for 30 yards into Indiana territory.  After an injury timeout, one handoff to De'Veon Smith saw the senior find the end zone with a little fancy leaping at the end, Michigan retook the lead and would never look back.  A second Smith touchdown, following a second blocked punt and a "missed it by that much" dagger from O'Korn to Darboh and there was some breathing room.

No, the chaos came in the snow late in the game.  It snowed.  Goodness did it snow.  In five minutes of game time, Michigan Stadium was transformed from a chilled November in the gloaming to a snowglobe of wonder, the flakes reflecting off the high-powered stadium lights in a way that was more calming that anything else.  Concurrent to this, Michigan did something it had not been able to do against Michigan State or Iowa in the fourth quarter, as they milked a 15 play drive for 51 yards, but more to the point, over eight minutes of game time, assuring that Indiana would have to move the ball in Hoth-like conditions to mount any form of a comeback and reminding them that we would see them in Hell when their Tauntaun died before they reached the first marker.

The snow swirled, the joy of a perfect home season settled over the crowd, a reminder that not every season at Michigan Stadium must end in disappointment, as had become familiar over the last decade or so.  The first snowfall of the season is a reminder of the joyful feeling that snow can provide before the cold, harsh realities of a long Michigan winter settle over you.  But, as a symbol of an ending, for this massive senior class, for those who have seen lows and highs in somewhat equal measure,

Now comes Ohio State week.  A truncated work week as we celebrate that which we are thankful for while simultaneously what we both covet and dread.  There is no reason to believe that Michigan can't go down to Columbus and get a win, but that knowledge comes with the caveat that it's going to require virtually everything to go right for Blue and a lot of things to go wrong for the Buckeyes.  But that is likely more the realities of the 21st century speaking in the back of my mind.  Never stop fighting until the fight is through.  Here endeth the lesson.

Just like starting over

Love the Drake!

Started from the bottom, now we're here.

OK, now that we have the obvious Drake joke out of the way, let's get on with the column.

It's going to be the common theme of many columns on the Indiana game that things were different, better, new again after Friday's resignation.  That is the power of projecting that which you wish to believe can have that impact on a view of the world.   But it's hard to know for sure.  For one,  I've just regained enough feeling in my fingers to be able to type the column.

Yesterday, Michigan beat Indiana, as it has the last 19 times the teams have played since 1988, and as they have done every time they have played at Michigan Stadium since 1967 (17 times), and 54 times out of the 63 that they have played.  Beating Indiana on the regular is almost a given in the days of Michigan's past, but nothing can or should be taken for granted any more (and probably shouldn't have been in the first place.)

In the grand scheme of things, this game won't mean much, and likely won't be remembered in the annals of Michigan football lore.  But, if I do remember this game, it will likely be "the Drake Johnson game".  That makes me happy for a kid who crossed Main Street from Pioneer to the Big House, for a kid whose mom has been Michigan's cheerleading coach for over three decades, to get not one but two touchdowns, and looking good doing it, I'm happy for him.  Some day in the future, he'll be able to tell people that in the depths of Michigan's despair, he had his number called and he stepped up and provided a spark.  Most players will tell you that they just want to do what they can to help the team, and Drake Johnson, wearing the #20, did just that yesterday.  Good for him.

By recent convention, I'm supposed to note that everything around Michigan football would be better if Michigan's record were better.  I have nothing to add to that, since it seems like it's so patently obvious that it needs further elaboration, but since everyone who has chipped in with an opinion on Michigan football or the Michigan athletic department over the last month has said it, I felt duty bound to include it.

New eras have to start somewhere.  This isn't the beginning of the end of this era, well, we can't know for sure, but, as Churchill said so many years ago,  I am comfortable saying it's the end of the beginning.  A new day will dawn soon enough.  What that day holds for us has yet to be determined.  But with good decision making, clear eyed leadership, and hope for the future once again settling in, we can hope for better days.  It's up to us to fight for them.

Side Notes:

• It doesn't seem like a Brady thing to do, but Joe Bolden was a game captain this week.  Does this mean that he was trying to say "Sorry, not sorry." back up East Lansing way?
• Why the Penn State style Blue and White Scarves for the Weekend of Champions?  
• Maybe it was just Homecoming, but Special K seemed more under wraps this weekend.  Perhaps wishful thinking?
• Man was it cold.  It's the coldest I've ever been at a Michigan game without also being cold and wet.  I'm calling this one Fandom Endurance II, Cold and Wind Variant.  Still not Northwestern 2008.
• The Wave got screwed up.  But The Wave happened, so that's progress.

Forty-Two Ways to Beat Indiana

Forty-Two Ways to Beat Indiana

(with so many apologies to Paul Simon)

"The problem is all with your defense", they said to me
The answer is the offense, as you'll see logically
We'd like to help you in your struggle for bowl eligibility
There must be forty-two ways to beat Indiana

They said I should look at the stats they've accrued.
Furthermore, what about the QB's ability to elude
But they repeated themselves about this opening Big Ten feud
There must be forty-two ways to beat Indiana
Forty-two ways to beat Indiana

Just cut it this instant, Vincent
Hit the jets hard, Denard
You don't need to be coy, Roy
Just get yourself free

Put us up by seven, Kevin
You don't need to ponder therein
Just burn that Hoosier, Junior
And get yourself free

Just cut it this instant, Vincent
Hit the jets hard, Denard
You don't need to be coy, Roy
Just get yourself free

Put us up by seven, Kevin
You don't need to ponder therein
Just burn that Hoosier, Junior
And get yourself free

They said it grieves us so to see you in such pain
We wish there was something we could do to make you smile again
I said I appreciate that and would you please explain
About the forty-two ways

They said "Why don't we just watch it the U?", to no one's delight
And I believe in the evening, you'll begin to see the light
And then they smiled and I realized they were probably right
There must be forty-two ways to beat Indiana
Forty-two ways to beat Indiana

Just cut it this instant, Vincent
Hit the jets hard, Denard
You don't need to be coy, Roy
Just get yourself free

Put us up by seven, Kevin
You don't need to ponder therein
Just burn that Hoosier, Junior
And get yourself free

Just cut it this instant, Vincent
Hit the jets hard, Denard
You don't need to be coy, Roy
Just get yourself free

Put us up by seven, Kevin
You don't need to ponder therein
Just burn that Hoosier, Junior
And get yourself free

IU's Terry Hoeppner: 1947-2007

Sad news from elsewhere in the Big Ten today, as Indiana head coach Terry Hoeppner has died due to complications from brain cancer. In his two seasons with the Hoosiers, the team was 9-14, but last year it seemed like a program on its way back from the Big Ten cellar. They beat Michigan State, they beat Iowa, and they came within a single win of making their first bowl game since the '93 Copper Bowl. For the first time in a long time, IU had to be regarded as more than a functional bye. It was no secret that he'd already undergone treatment for a brain tumor, and Hoeppner had recently announced that he'd be missing the 2007 season, but I'd really hoped to see him back on the sidelines in '08. Our condolences go out to the Hoeppner family.

This marks the second straight season the Big Ten has lost one of its own. Almost exactly a year ago (June 29), Northwestern's Randy Walker suffered a fatal heart attack. Pat Fitzgerald took over, but the young team never could put anything together. It seemed like every step of the way they had to stop and mourn their lost coach, as other teams and the media wanted to honor Randy Walker. In one final connection, both men were also former head coaches at Miam of Ohio, Hoeppner succeeding Walker after the latter took the job at Northwestern. Along with Bo, that makes for three representatives of the Cradle of Coaches that have left us in the past year.

IU Coach Hoeppner passes away (We Are The Postmen)
Ind. Football Coach Terry Hoeppner Dies (AP)