So, the Indiana Hoosiers will be playing in The Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day 2026 at the Rose Bowl Stadium. Be still my beating heart.

In November of 2020, yes, that year. My dear wife, Carrie, and I were spending a quarantined week along Topsail Island looking at the Atlantic Ocean. Feeling the ocean breeze, I was on the phone one sunny afternoon getting about as close to Indiana playing in The Rose Bowl as I figured I ever would. Dave Kornowa was talking to me on the phone, as I jotted down notes and hung on every syllable.

Dave Kornowa kicked the field goal for the Indiana Hoosiers against the USC Trojans on New Year’s Day 1968. USC beat IU 14-3 that day. I would see the light of day for the first time two and a half months later. We talked for nearly two hours about that magical 1967 season. I will always be thankful that Dave took the time to talk to me. I think we both enjoyed it.

Yet here we are all these years later and life has other plans.

Yes, I know. Seeing that capital A is about as enticing as looking at a D for Duke. That seems to be the resounding theme from so many Alabama fans I am hearing from as to what their thoughts are about playing lowly Indiana. Being the traditionalist, I would have preferred a rematch with Oregon in this game. You may get the picture. At least I could pretend it would be a matchup against a Big Ten school and a PAC-12 school.

We’re stuck with Bama. The last time I attended one of their bowl games, the Minnesota Golden Gophers beat them in the Music City Bowl back in December of 2004. Hey, at least Bama and Minnesota were playing in a Bowl Game! Indiana was not. At that point, the last bowl game the Hoosiers played in was the Independence Bowl in 1993. I was in Shreveport for that one too. Not the Hoosiers finest day. Coach Frank Beamer’s run of a ton of Bowl Games for Virginia Tech started that day. What a coach he was.

I was asked today if I am excited about being in Pasadena for The Rose Bowl on January 1st.

No, I won’t be in the press box. This rejection notice did not take long to receive. I had to try, right? But, I will be there.

My answer was that I am still trying to process it. You know, being there. In earnest, The Rose Bowl is my favorite game of the year. As a child of the Midwest, The Rose Bowl is the home of my heroes. Warren Moon in 1978 playing for Washington. All those USC teams with student body right tailbacks. Ricky Bell. Charles White. Marcus Allen. Rick Leach and Rob Lytle playing for Michigan. The great Ohio State teams. Iowa in 1985. This was and is THE GAME. We can get past the fact college football, not helping itself out these days, is still a great game.

So, having been to The Rose Bowl Stadium to see UCLA host USC a couple times, my favorite game outside of The Big Ten and The Egg Bowl, I know what is out there. I know the way. Keith Jackson called it “The mansion at the end of the yellow brick road.”

Keith Jackson Broadcast Center Tribute at the Rose Bowl Stadium

Having spent some time on the field, I know what’s there.

And now I suppose this is truly real. Indiana plays in The Rose Bowl in my lifetime. And I know the way there.

I am not sure how it could be better than this. Beating Ohio State in the Big Ten Championship Game was the cherry on top of the sundae. Maybe The Rose Bowl will be the whipped cream. Or the rainy cream.

I don’t care if it rains or not. I will be there, and I know the way. I’m still trying to believe it all.

Look, I have already written about the players and the stats and some of the intangibles. Indiana has the best coach in the nation. Who could argue that? This is Indiana. And Coach Cignetti is making a great many top program coaches look bad. At INDIANA. I know. I’ve been hanging around Memorial Stadium at IU for more than 50 years. I’m sure there are some Alabama fans that expect the Indiana Football Team to be delivered to Pauley Pavillion for the game. They know it all. I enjoy their history. I know that Coach Bear Bryant beat Illinois in his last game 43 years ago tonight. I was watching and cheering Coach Bryant on. (I know the post says December 30th… my server for this webpage is in the old country… Bear’s last game was December 29th where I am in Indiana today!)

Lastly, the Ole Miss Rebels are the team that scares me the most. They have a QB who would fit in nicely at Indiana. He’s a gem in the rough. Not a 4 star. A no star. Those are the guys that are driving Indiana, and this is going to be fun.

I’m a stats guy. I always have been. My football coaching father told me there is only one stat folks remember and that is the one on the score board. I get it. In college I gave an informative speech explaining the NFL QB rating system. I think it has been tweaked since then. Ken Anderson’s 1981 QBR of 98.5 was explained on a black board in Crestview Hall. Doing my best John Madden, chalk dust flying, and me telling classmates “This is how it works, boom!”

Sure, another stats guy or gal from Alabama could bring another litany of numbers to dazzle you with. Ones like how Alabama has spent more than 900 hundred weeks in the AP Top 25 poll over the years and Indiana has only spent 95 weeks in the poll with 26 of those 95 coming in the Coach Curt Cignetti era. They would be correct. Good for them. This is not about revisionist history. I’m just saying, on paper, Alabama is in trouble. Thankfully paper is not worth much. Kind of like that line when art critics are arguing.

Critic #1: “How can you call that work unimportant? It’s hanging in the Metropolitan!”

Critic # 2: “Well, so is toilet paper.” My apologies to Pat Conroy and The Prince of Tides.

The following are numbers based on the first 13 games played by Indiana and Alabama. There is a reason Indiana is the number one team in America. My dad would say, “Look at the dadgum score board. Indiana is 13-0.” I get it dad. These stats taken from each school’s website and NCAA stat website.

Scoring: Indiana 41.9 to 10.85 Alabama 31.2 to 17.38

First Downs given up by penalty: Indiana 7 Alabama 19

3rd Down Defense: Indiana .281 Alabama .347

Penalty Yards per game: Indiana 28.46 Alabama 41.92

Turnover Margin: Indiana +17 Alabama +7

Fumbles Lost: Indiana 1 Alabama 7

Tackles for Loss: Indiana 8.6 per game Alabama 5.7 per game

QB Passing Efficiency Rank: Indiana #2 Alabama #39

Field Goal kicking: Indiana 15 of 16 Alabama 13 of 20 (Bama was 2 for 2 against Oklahoma Saturday so now 15 for 22; you know I love all kickers.)

Heisman Trophy Winner: Indiana 1 Alabama 0

That Heisman Trophy is great and all. I’ve never seen a trophy score a touchdown.

Last one and probably the most telling:

Rushing Yardage Comparison:

Indiana 221.6 yds per game Indiana’s opponents 77.6 yds per game

Alabama 109.9 yds per game Alabama’s opponents 120.6 yds per game

My dad is right. I won’t give a rat’s bladder (apologies to Captain Furillo) if Bama has 500 yards passing and -34 yards rushing as long as Indiana scores one more point than Alabama. At the end of the day, I am just an old stats guy. Trouble is I can recite Terry Bradshaw’s stats quicker than I can Patrick Mahomes.

At the end of the day, I can tell you that I fell off the turnip truck 40 years ago. Alabama fans will tell you Indiana hasn’t played anyone. A few Alabama fans, and I have enjoyed looking in on some Bama podcasts today, did take notice that Indiana University is in Bloomington and not Indianapolis when the Hoosiers defeated the Ohio State Buckeyes in The Big Ten Championship Game to run their record to 13-0.

One more stat. This one is from the January 22, 2011, edition of The Birmingham News. The article announcing that Alabama assistant coach Curt Cignetti was leaving the Tide and cutting his $250,000 salary from Alabama in half to become the head coach at Division II Indiana (Pa.). THE STAT? This story was in the middle of page 4C that January 22nd day.

Today I heard Paul Finebaum tell Matt Barrie that the pressure in on Indiana more than it is Alabama, as we head into this New Years Day battle in The Granddaddy of the All. I miss Keith Jackson. How can Paul’s logic even start to stick to the wall? It can’t. Alabama has much more to lose than Indiana does and Paul knows that. He’s an SEC cheerleader and he is a good one. Bama has the legacy. IU is building one. The last time the Indiana Hoosiers played in The Rose Bowl Stadium, Indiana won 42-13. The last time Alabama played in The Rose Bowl, Bama lost 27-20 in OT. With a nod to my dad, those may be stats to remember as well.

There are some things I just don’t expect to see. If I get to the Eiffel Tower one day, it will be a shock to me. There are other examples I could line up. You get the idea. Watching a 12-0 Indiana Hoosier Football Team play a 12-0 Ohio State team for the Big Ten Championship seemed more unpractical than going to France until Saturday. That was when this actually happened for real. I was there. I was really there. Indiana played Ohio State for the Big Ten Championship Saturday night. And they won 13-10. This is something I am still trying to completely process. Indiana had not beaten Ohio State since I was 20. I was there for that one. I’m 57 now. I was there for that one too. I really was there. I have pictures.

Hoosier fans far and wide were taken aback on the first play of the game when Indiana QB Fernando Mendoza was knocked just south of Fort Wayne and landed face first on the field. He got the wind knocked out of him, I thought, I hoped. Have you ever had that happen to you? I have been there. I will be there again before I get to France. This feeling is AWFUL. Thankfully, it goes away. That’s when #15 ran back out on the field a play later. They got this, I thought.

They did have it. They do have “it”. You know what I’m talking about. Whatever “it” is, you know it when you see it. And when you feel it. That is what this Indiana Football season has been about. I have never seen a team so efficient. Hats off to Coach Curt Cignetti.

When the game was over Saturday night, Coach Cig was having a good time. He earned it. This two season Indiana Football turnaround he has engineered is akin to The Miracle on Ice. No one has more respect for that happening than I do. To even try to make a comparison was once unfathomable. Now I believe it. In the two seasons with Coach Cignetti at the stern, Indiana is 24-2. That is not a typo.

I have thrown out the impressive stats. They are mindboggling. But what a great bunch of guys to just root for. They are so easy to root for. Top to bottom. There is nothing not to like. On Saturday, you can expect to hear Fernando Mendoza’s name called out as the 2025 Heisman Trophy winner. Has he thrown out a Heisman Pose on the field this year? Not hardly. Fernando would rather talk about his offensive line. He is a smart man. All the old linemen reading this are shaking their heads in agreement. They know. They love Fernando too.

I know many of you know of my affinity for singing. Well, Saturday night, as the Ohio State placekicker’s 27-yard attempt sailed wide left outside the upright in this picture, a kick that would have tied the game and probably sent us to overtime, I quite know that I strained a vocal cord. There is still a soreness on the left side of my neck. And I can feel something that just doesn’t feel right in there. It will heal. I have no regret. Maybe I’ll be able to hit some of those Joe Cockeresque notes I have always wanted to find as they were intended.

Next up for the Indiana Hoosiers is the home of my heroes. The Rose Bowl. That is how perfect this season is to me. I’m good with playing either Alabama or Oklahoma. Preferably Bama. They got no business in the playoff and most of America knows that. But, yeah, this is perfect. To be playing this game on January 1, a tradition THAT MUST STAY for the sake of a great parade, great folks in Pasadena who get ready for it all year long, and for the love of mankind the memory of Keith Jackson deserves all of this! I took the picture above on a Thursday morning before a USC-UCLA game in 2018.

You know all the talking heads at the FOX pregame show desk picked Ohio State. This won’t stop any time soon. Indiana won’t get the respect they deserve, and the team and coaches all feed off of that for sure. Just more of the perfect symmetry of a season that gave Indiana University a Big Ten Champ at last. The Hoosiers still have some work to do.

Things will look much differently Saturday Night. The picture above was taken in 2023 before the Indiana Hoosiers played the Louisville Cardinals. IU lost 21-14. It was a game Indiana had no business losing.

I was in this mass humanity 37 years ago. That was the last time the Indiana Hoosiers beat the Ohio State Buckeyes.

Keith Jackson was in the house that day. I don’t remember Keith ever being there before or after. TV games were few and far between then. Indiana won the game 41-7 on a beautiful and warm October 8th afternoon. Anthony Thompson ran for 190 yards and four TDs. For me this was THE GAME that I held onto for so long. I never thought anything I would witness at Memorial Stadium would ever top it. Then came this year’s dismantling of #9 ranked Illinois by a score of 63-10. That game topped it.

In full disclosure, I have sat down three times this week trying to write something about the Big Ten Championship Game when the Indiana Hoosiers will be the designated “away” team and the Ohio State Buckeyes will be the “home” team inside Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. In earnest, it is all a bit much for this old boy. I have written ad nauseum about every aspect of what has been working for Indiana this year. Great offense led by the best QB in the land. Balanced offense led by an offensive line that protects the quarterback or make holes “big enough to drive a truck through” as they say. A gifted receiving corps is there. Running by committee and all the backs running hard and making the most of their carries.

Yep. I think Indiana will win this one and Fernando Mendoza will win the Heisman Trophy. Not because OSU has beaten Indiana 30 straight times and it is Indiana’s time. With a nod to Coach Cig, this team didn’t lose those 30 games.

Tight End Riley Nowakowski will be a difference maker in this game. While the Buckeyes are chasing 3 wides down the field, Nowakowski will be underneath dragging over the middle, and Mendoza will hit him five times in the first half. Two of them will go for touchdowns. #37 looks like the 80s Kellen Winslow with legs that belong to Earl Campbell.

Defensively, what else is there? A plus 17 turnover ratio leads the nation. Like OSU, Indiana’s defense doesn’t give up many points. The D-line is solid and the stunts they run give the other team’s O-Line fits. Linebackers that don’t make mistakes and are ball hawks. The secondary? D’Angelo Ponds. Louis Moore. These guys will be ready for anything the Buckeyes throw at them.

Above from left to right you will find each team’s average score/ number of first downs given up by penalty/ turnover ratio/ yards penalized per game. The Indiana Hoosiers play the game better than any other team plays the game. You can’t make this stuff up. Coach Curt Cignetti has led the greatest turnaround in college sports history.

Come kickoff time, if I make it through that play without hyperventilating, I’ll steal a line from Vern of Stand by Me fame. “This is a really good time.” I never thought we would be here.