Indiana needed to go through the storied football program of Nebraska in Lincoln before it could make its own history, and that's what the Hoosiers did Saturday with a 38-31 win.
From the day Indiana head coach Tom Allen sat in front of the media in early-December 2016, next to Indiana athletic director Fred Glass in the Henke Hall of Champions being introduced as the new head coach of Indiana Football, he has pushed his belief that, during his tenure, the program would “break through.”
He “took some heat” for branding the 2017 season as the breakthrough season just to finish 5-7, and then did the same in 2018. But, he said Saturday after Indiana’s 38-31 win at Nebraska, he never changed his belief.
He didn’t change it after standing in front of the media after his first close game against a top-25 opponent – an overtime loss to No. 15 Michigan – in 2017, or the 40-31 loss to Michigan State in week five, or any of the other times in between when his team went 3-8 in one-possession games.
But in Lincoln, after clinching bowl eligibility with Indiana’s sixth win, his postgame press conference felt different, he said.
“I got really tired of standing in front of you all and talking about how close we are,” Allen said to the media. “It feels pretty stinking good standing up here and answering questions about a road win for the Hoosiers. I don’t care what anyone says. This is awesome.”
The history surrounding Saturday’s game was well-documented.
Indiana hadn’t beaten Nebraska since 1959. It hadn’t reached bowl eligibility in October since 1993 – the same year it posted its last three-game Big Ten win streak. It hadn’t won back-to-back road conference games since 2015.
Indiana had brought in two of its best recruiting classes – 2018 and 2019 – in the history of its program, and those additions – David Ellis, Matt Bedford, Stevie Scott, Micah McFadden – were already contributing on the field. It had invested in its program and closed off the south side of Memorial Stadium in Bloomington.
New offensive coordinator Kalen DeBoer had reinvented the offense in modern ways, while Allen is in his third season removed from making Indiana the most improved defense in the country.
The pieces were adding up, yet after losing to Ohio State 51-10, spectators and media were justifiably concerned that Indiana was descending back into the mediocrity of the past and questioning what all the investment was for.
“History is what it is. We’re making changes,” Allen said Saturday. “Eventually, you have to get there, and I know that. I was born at night but not last night. You have to show evidence on the field that the breakthrough is actually coming.”
That’s what Indiana showed in Lincoln on Saturday. Battling a Nebraska team that it was favored to beat at one point during the week leading up to the game, Indiana wasn’t fighting a team near the likes of Ohio State, Penn State or Michigan State. But underneath the legend of fieve championships lettered inside the bowl of Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, Indiana was battling lore.
That comparison began before the opening kickoff, Allen said. Nebraska players had already started chirping at Hoosiers about the tradition of the programs – Nebraska’s 53 bowl berths to IU’s 11, Nebraska’s 46 conference titles to IU’s two, Nebraska’s 14 national title appearances and three Heisman winners to IU’s zero.
Whop Philyor’s third-quarter taunting penalty was attributed to reacting to that degradation, Allen said.
“Our guys took that personal, and he was one of them,” Allen said. “He was the leader of the band.”
That reaction – the fight, Allen called it – was evident in the way Indiana finished the game with a seven-point lead, as Stevie Scott powered his way through a defensive line he had only broken through a couple times all game. It manifested itself in the hard contact IU defenders were making with Nebraska ball carriers and the way Peyton Ramsey led the offense with a career day despite widespread understanding that injured starter Mike Penix could lift the offense to greater heights.
That effort and the pay-off made Allen emotional during postgame appearances – one with the Big Ten Network on the field and one at the podium – when he discussed adversity his team faced throughout the week and asked for more people to support his players for the work they’ve done.
That emotion weaved its way through the player sin the locker room too, Hendershot said, and it’s evident that the idea that the cliche of buying in to a message and a belief within a program and a coaching staff can be a reality.
“Everybody’s bought in,” Hendershot said. “Coach Allen finally has the full team underneath him, and we all believe in him and he believes in us. We came out here and we had our coach’s back. He’ll have ours any day, and we’ll have his.”
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