LINCOLN, NE — The Indiana Hoosiers are officially bowl eligible after going to Nebraska and getting a big time road win. They beat the Cornhuskers 38-31 and now it’s Chris Brown up in this piece “On and Poppin’!” This is HUGE for the program because the Hoosiers have only been to 11 bowl games in their entire 120 season history of playing football. They’re 3-8 in those bowls but who really cares at this point?
Tom Allen, the former head coach at Ben Davis High School, is getting it done down in Bloomington. They’re 6-2 with 4 games to play. They haven’t been this good since I was a student at IU when ole Bill Mallory was at the helm. I was at IU from 1987-90 and the Hoosiers were the real deal. They went to a bowl game darn near every year. Mallory had the Hoosiers bowling in ’86 (All-American), ’87 Peach), ’88 (Liberty), ’90 (Peach), ’91 (Copper), ’93 (Independence) and boyz in Bloomington got greedy and eventually ran him out of town.
Bill Mallory was the best coach the Hoosiers ever had because he was consistently winning. He won games, they played on national television when there wasn’t 1000 channels and everybody played on national TV and he took them to bowl games when there wasn’t 35 of them. Now more than 70 teams get to go to bowls every year. Back then there were only 20 teams going bowling.
At that time there was only about 10 bowls and the Hoosiers were playing during the holidays. There was only the Rose, Sugar, Orange, Cotton, Liberty, Independence, Copper, Gator, Peach, All-American and maybe two more that I can’t think of off of the top of my head. Therefore, everybody winning 6 games wasn’t going to a bowl. The Hoosiers were always competing under Mallory.
Fans, boosters and the adminisistration got greedy and wanted more when the program is what it is. Just like the Purdue fans and boosters got greedy when they ran Joe Tiller out of town up in West Lafayette. The dun was a monster taking them to like 9 straight bowls and winning a Big Ten title and the Boilermakers forgot who they really were and dissed him. They’ve been struggling ever since.
I just hope IU keeps this all in perspective with Tom Allen. He’s been to two bowls in three years so far. In real life, he’s rolling at IU right now. Leave that dun alone and let him work. The best you’re going to do at IU is win 6 or 7 games. That’s it!! Why? Because it’s IU. It’s not Ohio State or Michigan or even Wisconsin or Michigan State. You’re not gong to get enough high profile players (top recruits) coming out of high school to consistently win 10 ball games a year.
Rolling at IU is 6 games, 7 max. Don’t get greedy and start looking for Allen to win 10 games because that’s not going to happen. Be happy with going to the Crispy Cream Bowl on December 17 and everything will be cool. Big shout to coach Tom Allen for making it happen in B-Town. Stop me when I start lyin’!
Playas Thesaurus:
1) Dun: noun – the person in question, dude, guy, etc. It’s whoever I’m talkin’ about and its non-gender specific.
