My answers over on the Indiana Blog here.
One of the nice things about being a college football fan is visiting other campuses or learning about the other team and their history and circumstances.
Before we get to the football end of the story, I asked where the quarry imagery came from.
"Regarding the quarry imagery, southern Indiana is limestone country. The Empire State Building and lots of the buildings and monuments in Washington are made of Indiana limestone. In addition, there are many abandoned quarries near Bloomington that serve as swimming holes for locals and students alike. In fact, Bloomington locals (i.e., townies) are called cutters, as in stonecutters. There is a movie called Breaking Away, an Oscar-winning film from around 1980, that sets this out."
1.Hoosiers
football has struggled recently. Can you give us a little history of
your program? Do the Indiana fans feel the program is on the rise?
Unfortunately,
the history isn't much better than recent history. In over 100
years of football history, IU has only two Big Ten titles (1945 and
1967), one undefeated season (1945), and one Rose Bowl appearance
(1/1/1968). IU is bearing down on Northwestern for the most
losses in college football history. I was a bit spoiled in my
youth because I began following IU football during one of the few
periods in which IU has consistently won more games than it lost.
From 1986 through 1994, IU had six bowl bids and seven winning
seasons in nine seasons, two bowl wins, a couple of wins and a tie
against Ohio State and one win over Michigan. Since then, it's
been a bit bleak, IU's 7-6 record and Insight Bowl bid in 2007
account for IU's only winning season since 1994. Frankly, I
think IU fans are a bit snakebitten at this point. IU seemed to
have the perfect coach in place in the mid 2000s. Terry
Hoeppner came to IU and was a fine coach, a wonderful representative
of the university, and actually considered IU his dream job.
Unfortunately, Hoeppner died of brain cancer in June 2007. His
successor, Bill Lynch, led IU to a winning season in 2007 but
couldn't keep the positive momentum going. While most IU fans
liked the hire of Kevin Wilson, who spent several years as offensive
coordinator at Oklahoma, the 1-11 season last year was a wakeup call.
I still am behind Wilson, but like everyone else I would like
to see some progress this year.
2.The
Hoosiers rang up 26 first downs against a pretty solid FCS club in
Indiana State. Who played well in that game?
The
player who really stood out was Tre
Roberson, IU's sophomore quarterback. Roberson was pressed
into service as a true freshman last season and was solid if raw.
Against ISU, he completed 72 percent of his passes and looked
like much more polished than he did last season. On the
defensive side, IU allowed lots of yards, particular to Walter Payton
Award candidate Shakir Bell, but the defense was pretty solid on
third down and did sack ISU's quarterback five times.
3.What
is the basic Hoosier offense? What is the basic defense? Name some
standouts on both sides of the ball.
Kevin
Wilson has a history of being fairly flexible on offense. He
is generally known for his spread offense, particularly at
Northwestern in the early 2000s, but obviously has run the ball when
he had the likes of Adrian Peterson at OU. The current
offensive coordinator is Seth
Littrell, who played on OU's 2000 national championship team and
then worked for Mike Leach at Texas Tech before becoming OC at
Arizona. Like Leach, his offense is very fast-paced (IU
typically gets to the line immediately and then gets the play from
the sideline) with lots of short passes. On the other hand, and
contrary to the stereotype, IU had 47 rushes compared to 36 pass
attempts. On defense, IU runs a 4-3 and showed essentially no
areas of competency last year. Hopefully the ability to rush
the passer will continue as the quality of competition ramps up. On
offense, other than Roberson, standouts include WR
Kofi Hughes, who was suspended for the first game, as well as WR
Shane
Wynn and Duwyce Wilson. Tight end Ted
Bolser was excellent as a freshman but struggled as a sophomore,
but played well against ISU. Running back Stephen
Houston was one of the few bright spots last season, but will be
sharing time with D'Angelo
Roberts and true freshman Tevin
Coleman this season. Center Will
Matte is a four year starter. On defense, again, the unit
was a tire fire last year, but the DT has some veterans in Adam
Replogle and Larry
Black, Jr. LB Chase
Hoobler and S Mark
Murphy played well as freshmen last year. Several junior
college transfers, including David
Cooper and Jaccari
Alexander, should make a difference.
4.Gillette
is a pretty good place to watch a football game. Will Indiana bring
any fans?
My
guess is a couple thousand. IU has a pretty solid alumni
presence in the northeast, but we aren't a school that typically
travels well for football. Of course, those of us who are Colts
fans think of Gillette as a house of horrors, at least in January.
I'm glad it won't snow.
5.How
do you think both programs will be doing when we meet again in 2017?
I
have no idea how IU will be doing. My guess is that IU will
either be in pretty good shape or will be in the early years of yet
another rebuild. I think Kevin Wilson will get at least five
years to build something, but history tells us that he faces long
odds. As for UMass, who knows? If you can get some
momentum, I wouldn't be surprised to see a successful MAC program.
It seems to me your main challenges will be the stadium issue
and being something of a mismatch geographically in the MAC.
Although I supposed that in a world in which Boise State is in
the Big East and West Virginia is in the Big 12, there is no such
thing as a geographic mismatch.
6.Tell
us how you think Saturday's game will go.
I
have no idea. IU's only non-conference road game last season
was at North Texas, not a very good team at all, and IU was
absolutely obliterated until a furious fourth quarter comeback led to
a misleading final score. IU hasn't defeated an FBS opponent
since beating Purdue in November 2010. I feel reasonably
confident that IU will find a way to win, but my pessimism suggests
that the game will be in doubt well into the fourth quarter. I
would be very pleased and not entirely surprised if IU put together
its first complete performance of the Wilson era, but I'll believe it
when I see it.
Thanks to John M. for taking the time to visit with us!
