Ryan McGee
By Ryan McGee
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. -- The distance between the frozen 50-
yard line at Memorial Stadium, home to the Hoosiers of
Bloomington, Indiana, to the center of the field of Miami's Hard
Rock Stadium, where those Hoosiers did snow angels in red
and white confetti celebrating a College Football Playoff
National Championship on Monday night, is 1,166 miles.
But it's a hell of a lot of further than that.
It is also 715 losses, which was the most recorded by any team
in the 156 years of college football. Was. It was an all-time bowl
record of 3-8. Was. It was zero double-digit win seasons since
1887. Was. It was the promise of so many coaches hired -- nine
from 1982 to 2023 -- brought to town with so much energy, from
Lee Corso and Cam Cameron to Gerry DiNardo to Kevin Wilson
to Tom Allen. All flirted with winning, all teased the fan base with
signs of success, but all ultimately left town as just another
letdown with another folder full of losing records.
Was no outright Big Ten titles since 1945. Was no appearances
in the Big Ten championship game. Zero weeks atop the AP Top
25 poll. No Heisman winners. No Rose Bowl wins. No national
titles.
Was. Was. Was. Was.
All that came before -- more accurately, all that never came
before -- was swept away in a wave of was Monday night. So
many years. So many games. So many moments of acceptance
that, well, hell, Indiana is just never going to be good at football.
Gone. Erased by way of a thrilling 27-21 victory over a
resurgent college football blue blood, the Miami Hurricanes, and
in Miami's home stadium. The kid who won that Heisman won
the game not with the arm that earned his accolades, but with a
bulldozer 12-yard touchdown run. And a team that made its
living breathlessly outscoring teams iced the victory with a red
zone interception in the closing seconds.
People argue that the multiverse isn't real. But we now live on a
college football timeline in which the worst program in the game's history is one of the most memorable national
champions that history has ever witnessed.
"I know Indiana's football history has been pretty poor with
some good years sprinkled in there," said coach Curt Cignetti,
who removed his team from the top of the all-time loss rankings
with a 16-0 season. "It was because there wasn't an emphasis
on football, plain and simple. It's a basketball school. Coach
[Bob] Knight had great teams. The emphasis [now] is on
football. It's on basketball, too. But you've got to be good in
football nowadays. ... We've got a fan base, the largest alumni
base in the country, Indiana University. They're all-in. We've got
a lot of momentum."
Indiana. Football school. It is a truth that is hard to accept. But
none of us should feel guilty about that, because the Hoosiers
themselves also are having a hard time with it.
"What I want to do right now is go back to the 1990s and tell
everyone that this is going to happen, because they won't
believe it. And I know that because honestly, it's hard for me to
believe it, and I'm standing out here on the field right now," said
Adewale Ogunleye, perhaps the perfect one-man encapsulation
of the Indiana football story -- a three-time All-Big Ten defensive
end and Indiana Athletics Hall of Famer who had an 11-year
NFL career that included a first-team Pro Bowl selection. And
yet from 1996 to 1999, his four Indiana teams went 13-31 with
zero bowl appearances and never finished higher than eighth in
the conference.
The former captain of his team and honorary captain of this
team paused and pointed toward the crowd as the fans
serenaded that Heisman-winning quarterback, Fernando
Mendoza, with ABBA's "Fernando."
"I love all the people who have gotten onboard with Indiana
football this year and last. But what I really wish is that every
single one of those old-school fans who stuck it out with us back
in the day, I wish we could have them all here tonight,"
Ogunleye said as he sneaked a peak at his phone and grinned.
The texts were rolling in from his NFL friends who attended the
so-called football schools, including a few of the Miami legends
who had been on the Hurricanes' sideline but were already
headed home. "The fans who showed up on a cold Saturday in
November, knowing we were going to lose to Ohio State or
Michigan, all the schools these guys are texting me from right
now. Those fans, the ones who showed up then, they earned
this just as much as those guys up on that stage with that
trophy. They deserve to be here."
So many were. They made that 1,166-mile drive south over the
weekend, many at the last minute and more than a few without
a ticket. It was a modern-day version of those classic images
from the film "Hoosiers." A conga line of cars and trucks rolling
down I-95 into South Florida as if they were following the
Hickory High bus to Indianapolis for the state championship.
They were inspired by their team's postseason run through the
throne rooms of college football royalty, beating Ohio State,
Alabama, Oregon, and now a chance to topple The U in its own
backyard.
Like Harry Davis of Indianapolis, wearing a red-and-gold
Hickory High T-shirt that he bought from the gym in
Knightstown, Indiana, where many of the game scenes for the
movie were shot. In giant lettering on the back was the quote
from Norman Dale (Gene Hackman): "My team is on the floor."
"I ain't telling you how much I paid for this ticket because I don't
want my wife to read this and divorce me for irresponsible
spending," Davis said from his seat four rows from the top of
Section 345. Secondary market ticket prices for the game
reached record levels thanks to the participation of the
hometown Hurricanes, but according to one streetside ticket
seller outside of the Indiana team hotel Sunday afternoon, "It's
because of the Indiana people."
"But what the hell was I supposed to do?" Davis continued.
"Wait and hope the prices came down next year? Do you know
how long I've been waiting on next year to happen? You think
I'm gonna wait for another one?"
Davis politely told this nosy reporter that he didn't want to talk
anymore because, well, there was game going on. Same for the
Indiana fraternity guys wearing vintage 1991 Final Four T-shirts.
"I took mine from my dad's closet. The other guys got theirs on
the internet." Same for the Johnson brothers from Terre Haute,
who wore the jerseys of arguably the two greatest pre-Mendoza
Hoosiers, the quarterback from Ogunleye's era, pre-internet
dual-threat sensation Antwaan Randle El and the pride of Terre
Haute, running back Anthony Thompson, who finished second
in the 1989 Heisman race. "We went with our dad to Wisconsin
and saw Anthony run for four TDs and almost 400 yards," one of
the brothers shouted over the crowd singing "Mr. Brightside" by
the Killers. The other brother added: "That team went 5-6.
Welcome to Indiana football."
Was. What Indiana football was.
It was, like Thompson's career, all about great moments that
added up to great disappointments. Pretty good. Never great.
No offense to Corso's 1979 Holiday Bowl champs or Vaughn
Dunbar's heroics in the 1991 Copper Bowl, but that's as good
as it ever was. The good people of Bloomington content to let Notre Dame be the state's football school with occasional loan-
outs to Purdue, while everyone in red waited for hoops season to finally tip off.
"Even last year, it was like, that was amazing, but you could feel
people saying, well, will they just settle back into what they
always do?" acknowledged Alberto Mendoza, Fernando's
younger brother and backup quarterback, as that CFP title
confetti settled on his shoulders in the same stadium where the
Miami natives used to attend Hurricanes games. He was
speaking of 2024, he and Cignetti's first season in Bloomington,
a year that produced a then-school record 11 wins and a playoff
berth that ended with a first-round exit. "I get it. When you've
been beat down, you have to be careful about your
expectations. Now I think those expectations have changed,
don't you?"
Yes sir. What we thought -- what everyone outside of the
Indiana locker room thought -- was just a Cinderella in high-top
sneakers, a one-season wonder, now feels like the origin story
of a Midwestern monster.
"I will have a beer and I will give myself a day to enjoy this.
Maybe. A day sounds too long, doesn't it?" Cignetti said as a
smile finally cracked his now-internet-famous scowl. "No one
expected this. Even if they are a believer tonight, I know they
aren't expecting Indiana to keep rolling. So let's get to work on
that."
JUDGE'S COMMENT: "What a great big picture look at Indiana’s
National Championship victory over Miami, combining the
results of the game with a historical look at where Indiana had
been and where the Hoosiers are now after such a victory.
Love playing off the word was. Very clever approach. Showed
great enterprise seeking out comments from some of those
not even involved in the game issuing with pertinent view
points. Such an upgraded game story that caught me hoping
this piece would not end. Guarantee this approach hooked
readers."
RYAN MCGEE's BIO: Ryan joined ESPN more than 30 years ago as a TV production assistant one year after graduation from the University of Tennessee and following stints as a minor league baseball intern (Go Tourists!) and covering high school football for the Monroe Enquirer-Journal. McGee began contributing to ESPN the Magazine when it was launched in 1998 and ESPN.con shortly thereafter. He has served as a senior writer since 2007 and in 2013 began cohosting Marty & McGee on ESPN Radio and the SEC Network. Ryan lives in Charlotte with a Vol wife and Gamecock daughter and is neighbors with his father, longtime ACC/Big East field judge Dr. Jerry McGee, aka the Reason Ryan Loves College Football.