Show of hands of those of us sick and tired of all of the recruiting wars in College Football these days? I get it. Part of it.

So today and a few days afterward, I am going Back to the Future. I’m going to do what we used to do as we were waiting on the season to begin. We looked at the year’s roster and hoped a kid from Crown Point, or Coldwater, or Davenport, or Danville, or Upper Darby, or Santa Monica, or Grand Rapids, or Menomonee Falls might work out well for the team. He and a couple others from places like that. The old-fashioned newcomers who might be able to fill a spot next to a guy who’s been blocking for three years. They might get on the field to catch a few balls from the quarterback who’s been in the same huddle with most of the same guys wearing the same uniform for going on three years in a row. I know. I know. I’m going deep in the weeds now. Probably left some of you behind by the fence. But I know some folks out there pine to read something like this again.

Anytime my world gets crazy

All I have to do to calm it

Is just think of you.

From Janet Jackson’s song When I Think of You.

Not unlike most you, I have a point of reference for teams I look at, for conferences I pay attention to. For me, most of that time is taken in by looking at and soaking up The Big Ten and The Southeast Conference. The Big Ten, 18 teams full, took on the power brokers of the PAC-12. The SEC took on power brokers of The Big 12. Hence all this super-conference talk.

Over the years I have seen all The Big Ten teams play in one stadium or another. The only SEC teams I have not intimately looked in on are Florida, Texas A & M, Oklahoma, and Mississippi State. I feel quite blessed to have seen so much college football in the 57 falls I have been here.

Today we reflect on the teams of The Big Ten, and each team will get the ‘When I Think of You’ treatment.

Rutgers: I don’t think of the Scarlet Knights much. Piscataway. I have driven by the Piscataway exit. Didn’t feel compelled to stop. The traffic was awful, of course. November 9, 2006, does come to Rutgers Football mind. The lonely road I live on in rural Southern Indiana is about 40 minutes from downtown Louisville. There is a billboard of a diploma with my name on it somewhere here in the house. When you get a master’s degree from U of L, they don’t hand you a diploma. They hand you an advertisement they obviously hope you will proudly display so others can see that their name is much larger than yours. A diploma like this was handed to me a long time ago.

On a fateful November 2006 night, the #3 ranked 8-0 Louisville Cardinals, coached by Bobby Petrino, took on an 8-0 and 15th ranked Rutgers team in what turned out to be a 28-25 and the Rutgers home crowd took over the field after the upset win that would be the only blemish on Louisville’s record that year. For Rutgers, it was their first win over a ranked opponent in 18 years. Coach Greg Schiano, currently on his second stint there, was the head coach of the Knights that night.

Maryland: When I think of the Terps, I don’t think of the times I have seen them. The game in1984 Frank Reich won playing QB for Maryland in relief is the one I fall back on. Trailing 31-0 at halftime, Coach Bobby Ross sat starter Stan Gelbaugh in the 2nd half in a game played in The Orange Bowl Stadium. Reich led the Terps to a 42-40 comeback win that someone is surely talking about in a College Park diner over a burger as I type these words from Southern Indiana. Think that was bad for the Hurricanes? Two weeks later, in another home game, Doug Flutie threw the TD pass to Gerard Phelan on the last play of the game and won himself The Heisman Trophy as the Eagles of Boston College upset Miami 47-45.

Oregon: When I think of Oregon, I think about the 2024 Big Ten Championship Game.

#1 Oregon vs. # 3 Penn State. The last time these two had played was in the 1995 Rose Bowl when the Nittany Lions beat the Ducks 38-20. Not on this night. In a game with more than a little offensive power showing itself, Oregon won 45-37. It was a good one. Of course, I was rooting for Penn State.

Washington: The Huskies. The Pacific Northwest has always fascinated me. Looking at the weather in the newspaper when I was 14 made me wonder what overcast and 67 degrees could feel like so many days in a row. When the weather around here mimics those qualities, I shake my head wondering if this might be it. I know otherwise. The air quality there is better than that here in the Ohio Valley.

Football wise? When I was nine years-old, the Washington Huskies played the Michigan Wolverines in the 1978 Rose Bowl and upset the boys from Ann Arbor 27-20. Seeing a team besides USC or UCLA playing the team from The Big Ten in this game was something I certainly paid attention to. Don’t ever discount what it meant back then to believe going into the college football season that either UCLA or (probably) USC was going to play either Ohio State or Michigan in The Rose Bowl and we loved it anyway.

Warren Moon, playing quarterback for Washington, was the game’s MVP. Thankfully, I have relived this game recently on YouTube.

USC: Student Body Right. I can still see Charles White, Ricky Bell, Anthony Davis, and Marcus Allen. Those are the four Trojan tailbacks that run right and left in my memory. Sure, we can throw in Reggie Bush. He was a talent too. Anthony Munoz playing left tackle was a good watch. Can you imagine how relieved the opposing defensive end or defensive tackle must have felt when they were playing against USC and they were lined on the side opposite of #78? It was the difference between having a chance and not having a chance. Anthony was that good in the late 70s.

Years later, I ran into Anthony and his Cincinnati Bengals teammate Max Montoya in the chow hall during training camp at Wilmington College. He was walking away from the table with Max. My dad and I were walking towards them. Anthony threw a left arm in front of Max to hold him up and signaled to us with his right hand to hold up as well. He proceeded to compliment the cook with some gastric thunder anyone would be proud of. Then, with a smile and a nod, he let us pass. There was never any getting around Anthony Munoz.

UCLA:

My soft spot for UCLA is that of gratitude. I didn’t get Coach Chip Kelly’s permission to kick on a brand new, still being lined turf on the Thursday before USC-UCLA. That word came from the then-chief of The Rose Bowl Stadium. His name is Darryl Dunn. Darryl called me a week before to give me the okay. In retrospect, I’m glad I didn’t have longer to think about it. I kicked in a pair of Brooks out of respect for the new turf, though I had permission to plant a cleat. Had I missed any of my kicks, I wouldn’t bring this up. This was at age 50. Maybe I’ll try again at age 60.

Imagine my delight, visiting The Rose Bowl to see the Indiana Hoosiers take on the Alabama Crimson Tide in the last Rose Bowl Game. As I was walking on the concourse, I found Darryl Dunn’s name and was pleasantly reminded all over again:

Being 58 years of age and a child of the Midwest, nothing football is more important than The Rose Bowl. Some of us are just wired that way. Seeing USC, UCLA, Washington, and Oregon in The Big Ten is still an adjustment. If you know the tradition of The Rose Bowl, you can probably imagine my sentimental wistfulness come January 1st. That’s not going to change. I’ll still see Rick Neuheisel, Don Rogers, Tom Ramsey, and Kenny Easley playing for UCLA and the PAC-10.

Nebraska:

A Christmas card from Coach Tom Osborne is at the top of the Nebraska memory list. So was watching center Dave Rimington block so well for the likes of Roger Craig, Mike Rozier, and Turner Gill in the early 80s that in 2000 he would be the namesake of the trophy, The Dave Rimington Trophy, given to the outstanding center in college football. If you are of a certain vintage, you grabbed the Sunday sports section on cool fall mornings just to look and see how many yards the Nebraska offense put up against Kansas and feel an incredible envy of Nebraska fans as you wonder what it would be like to see your favorite team run for 600 yards in a game. That’s the way it was.

For me, I saw it first hand when Nebraska played Indiana in an early season tilt in 1978. 69-17 was the score. Do I have to tell you who won? How many yards? 616. Indiana scored with 3 seconds left to tighten it up. How bad was it really? Coach Osborne was K-I-N-D nice that day. Nebraska split 65 rushing carries among 11 different backs. Somebody’s grandson in Omaha is telling his friend about the day gramps got into a game in Bloomington.

Penn State: When I think about Penn State, I think about the 1994 team. For my money, that was the best football team I have ever seen in person. They were solid as rocks. Not unlike the latest National Champion to be crowned, this Penn State team did not create trouble for themselves. Solid bunch. I am still a little perplexed as how you can be the number #1 team in the land with a 6-0 record (having beaten 5th ranked Michigan the week before), then beat a ranked Ohio State team 63-14 and wake up the next morning to find that you are now ranked #2. That is what happened to Penn State and that is where it ended for the Penn State Nittany Lions after a 38-20 victory over Oregon in The Rose Bowl. Show of hands if you remember KiJana Carter’s 83-yard TD run on Penn State’s first offensive play of the game. Yes, that’s the one. This team needed a playoff back then. 1994 Penn State vs. 1994 Nebraska will forever be one of the greatest games that did not play out.

Northwestern: To tell you the truth, there hasn’t been much time to think about Northwestern. I appreciate their SAT scores. The 1995 team that went to The Rose Bowl under Coach Gary Barnett is still firmly etched in my mind. Linebacker Pat Fitzgerald was inspiring on that team. Later, as the Wildcat coach, Fitzgerald won games there. When you root for Indiana as long as I have, seeing something like that the 1995 NWestern team gives one hope. If you happen to live another 30 years, you might actually find yourself in Pasadena on J-1. Believe me, it can happen.

Wisconsin: So, let me be careful here. The last two times Bucky has visited Bloomington the Hoosiers have come out on top. That is the best thing I can say. My objectivity does have a limit.

What a beautiful day it was last season for Wisconsin to show up in Bloomington.

Michigan State:

I am ashamed to say I did not throw a single snowball in the direction of the Michigan State bench on October 30, 1993. I was sitting on the west side of Memorial Stadium. The visitor’s bench is on the east side. I can report I have never seen so much snow in Bloomington. It had already fallen and getting around the seats and aisles of the stadium was a time of peril. I wonder how many lawsuits are still being paid after that management debacle. I was 25. I thought it was fun. But what a mess of place. # 23 Indiana defeated # 22 Michigan State 10-0. The shutout meant the Hoosiers moved to 7-1 overall on the season and 4-1 in conference play. The Hoosiers would then lose to Penn State, Ohio State, and Virginia Tech in the Independence Bowl. A regular season ending win over Purdue meant Indiana would finish 8-4 and feel like underachievers.

Let’s not forget that in 1987 Michigan State defeated Indiana in a game that went a long way in deciding who was going to represent The Big Ten in The Rose Bowl. After the game, Indiana coach Bill Mallory went to the Michigan State locker room and told them to go to Pasadena and bring back a victory. Sparty did just that over USC 20-17. Michigan State head coach George Perles and Coach Mallory were pure class.

We’d be accused of fumbling if we didn’t mention “The Game of the Century”. If you know your college football history, the 1966 game between Michigan State and Notre Dame in East Lansing is referenced as such. I have a hard time calling a 10-10 tie The Game of the Century. ND came in ranked #1 and Sparty was ranked #2. Notre Dame coach Ara Parseghian decided to run the clock out with over a minute left, given his starting quarterback, Terry Hanratty, was injured earlier in the game. Tough ending for sure.

Minnesota: I’ll let you in on a little secret. I saw Goldy play in three Music City Bowls in four years. One against Arkansas in 2002, against Alabama in 2004, and against Virginia in 2005. They won two of those. Who beat them? Virginia 34-31. That was a great game. I cheered on the Gophers in each of them. The Minnesota kicker, Dan Nystrom, in the game against Arkansas, was named the game’s MVP. He booted 5 field goals in a 29-14 win over the #25 ranked Hogs.

For a while going to this game was just a Holiday tradition. We’d drive down to Nashville to watch the game, and we’d drive back home the same night. That was a long time ago.

Purdue: In the middle of a cold sideways rain in Memorial Stadium in Bloomington, my friend Gus Stephenson and I looked on alongside a modest crowd for an Old Oaken Bucket Game. Nothing will convince me that the decision by Indiana to fire Cam Cameron was not made before this game played in 2001. We all knew it was coming to an end. After the game was over and the Hoosiers beat the Boilermakers 13-7, the south end goal post came down. I heard it go “PoP!” when it came down. This was 2001 and it was not the last game of the season, as the Purdue game traditionally is. That season games all over the country were postponed after 9/11. On December 1st, Indiana played and defeated Kentucky. Cameron was 4-1 in his last five games. We all knew the end was in sight long before the season ended.

The Cradle of Quarterbacks. How can you go down the Purdue trail and not mention the great quarterbacks? The ones I think of immediately are Bob Griese, Mike Phipps, Gary Danielson, Mark Hermann, Jim Evertt, and Drew Brees. Those are some great signal callers. I hate to see Gary Danielson step away from the broadcast booth where he has been a fixture on CBS at 3:30 on Saturdays with a big game to call. Charles Davis will join Brad Nessler this year and I wish them well. They’ll do great together.

Illinois: When I think about Illinois Football, my feet start to get cold. In 1989 in Champaign, it WAS COLD!

My old buddy Hurricane Harrell and I drove over to Champaign in a car with no heat and we had even less money. Of course, neither of us wore a pair of gloves. We stopped at a Wal-Mart, which was novel then. Socks were cheaper than gloves. I wore a pair of socks driving a ’66 Mustang with no heat. I’d do it all over again, except for one thing. Indiana got beat soundly. Jeff George put on a show at QB for Illinois. Jeff threw 5 touchdown passes. Indiana’s Anthony Thompson ran for over 100 yards as usual. AT also score his 65th and last touchdown of his Indiana career on this cold day. Final score: 41-28 in favor of Illinois.

And then there was 2025. Oh my. As good as the 2024 Indiana Football season was, there were still skeptics about the team’s ability, endurance, resolve, chances, and so on. 11-2 didn’t prove much to the self-imposed football intellectual establishment out there. They were and will always be Indiana, right? That changed for some of these experts last September 20th. The Hoosiers beat the visiting #9 Illini 63-10; Heisman Trophy winning quarterback Fernando Mendoza watched the 4th quarter from the sidelines after completing 21 of 23 and five touchdowns. I wrote about it when it happened. This was the game, for me, that allowed the 1988 Indiana beating of Ohio State 41-7 to rest and became the game many Hoosier fans no longer had to wait on. It happened, finally.

Iowa: The Hawkeye Wave. At the end of the first quarter, more than 70,000 football fans are all on the same team. Team Wave. Though my only trip to Iowa City to watch a football game turned out horrid on the field, turning around in Kinnick Stadium to look up and wave at the kids and their families looking down from UI Stead Family Children’s Hospital is still an emotional moment as I put these words together. So caught up in the moment that day, I didn’t even think about taking a picture of this scene. This was a moment when we were all in the game. There’s nothing like it. Nothing remotely like it.

As a young boy, I fell in love with the passing game watching Bengals quarterback Ken Anderson throw deep balls to Isaac Curtis. After Ike had blown past the cornerback, he’d catch the ball and gently thrown it over his shoulder in the end zone. Throw it again, Kenny!

My wildest watching the pigskin fly dream came true on October 29, 1988. Against the Indiana Hoosiers in Memorial Stadium, Iowa quarterback Chuck Hartlieb complete 44 of 60 passes for 558 yards. The game took forever to play. With a 3:30 kickoff in Bloomington, the newly installed lights about the stadium came in handy. Iowa players Nick Bell, Devin Harbets, and Marv Cook each caught 10 or more balls. I can go on and on about this one. Perfect crisp fall day. Indiana won 45-34. Anthony Thompson carried the ball 47 times and score and scored and scored.

Michigan: “I want a Michigan man coaching Michigan!” I remember Coach Bo Schembechler as one of the larger-than-life figures in a by gone Big Ten era. Either his team or the team Woody Hayes coached would be playing in The Rose Bowl. That is the genesis of my Big Ten experience.

I think the first time I saw a Michigan team in person was in 1976. There are guys on that team still asking themselves how they beat the crap out of The Big Ten that year, including a 22-0 victory over Michigan, and still got beat by two points at Purdue. This was the national championship team that got away. This Michigan team DID play in The Rose Bowl. When I saw this team play, it looked like the backsides of the Michigan lineman were twice as wide as the Indiana defensive linemen and those big Wolverine hogs could move! Rick Leach at quarterback. Mike Kenn on the o-line. Dwight Hicks in the defensive backfield. 21 of these Wolverines spent some time in the NFL. I see these guys and the 1994 Penn State team in my dreams. They were amazing.

If you talk about Michigan and you don’t mention that last game of the season that kicks off at noon, you’re just spiteful. That is must- see action. Thank God for the VCR and now the DVR. Every conference has its marquee game. Michigan vs. Ohio State is a single game that elevates The Big Ten inestimably.

Ohio State: When I think of Ohio State football I think about being at my Granny’s house off of Linwood Avenue in Shreveport. It was my dad’s 36th birthday. I was 10. Ohio State was playing Clemson in The Gator Bowl. We watched every bowl game back then. There were only 15 bowl games in 1978. That year the Cotton Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Rose Bowl, and Orange Bowl were all played on January 1st as the Lord intended.

This Gator Bowl between Ohio State and Clemson had a moment that made me sit up on the couch a little straighter and try to process what we had just seen. A short pass by Ohio State quarterback Art Schlichter was picked off by Clemson nose guard Charlie Bauman. Bauman picked up a few yards before he was taken down near the Ohio State bench. Coach Woody Hayes took exception to Bauman’s fine play, and his temper got the best of him. Coach Hayes grabbed the Clemson player and gave him what for … or at least tried to. Coach Hayes, in his 28th season and most of them glorious, sealed his coaching fate in front of me, my dad, my granny, and Keith Jackson by hitting Charlie Bauman. A moment I am sure both men regretted terribly.

My next thought about the Ohio State Buckeyes looks not to the past. This time we are looking at the upcoming October 17th game between the Buckeyes and the Indiana Hoosiers.

The last time we saw these two teams play we took in what the SEC would call the de facto National Championship had it been a game between SEC teams ranked #1 and #2. That was my sense watching that night, especially when the gloves came off and both defenses were throwing haymakers. Nothing would come close moving forward in the playoffs to what the Hoosiers had to endure to come away victorious against the Ohio State Buckeyes that night.

When the Hoosiers either kick or receive to open the game vs. the Buckeyes in October this fall, Memorial Stadium in Bloomington will be a place like we have never seen before (again).

Indiana: When I think of Indiana, I think of a football watching life that finally looked off in the distance from the top of the mountain. I always wondered what it looked like. It looked Rosey. It looked Peachy. It looked Final, finally.

Last year’s Indiana football experience included saying hello to one of my heroes after The Rose Bowl. The one and only Keith Jackson.

The day I walked out on the field at the Rose Bowl Stadium, I walked by and stared at the place in the endzone where Vince Young scored the winning touchdown for Texas in the National Championship game against USC. I could hear it. “He’s got the corner!”

Any writing endeavor like this would be incomplete without tipping the cap to Coach Cignetti. What he has done is proof of the power of the person. He’s that good. And I am delighted he is living in Bloomington these days.

People laugh when I tell them I have seen 80 of the current FBS teams play in person, having travelled far and wide, and then tell them I have attended all of one Indiana University basketball games. Yes, there are football people in Indiana. Not as many as I wish there were. Attending a game in Memorial Stadium can still be painful, if you listen to some of the paltry football acumen you will be exposed to around you. The dumber the louder, usually. Painful. Painful I tell you. When I hear talk of stadium expansion at IU, I cringe a little. That’s why I try to get into the press box as often as I can. Being in the press box is much better for my writing life.