It's been 40 years already and has anything really changed?

First appeared on September 30, 2009
in The Lebanon Reporter

Some things happen only once in a lifetime. Things like true love, Haley’s Comet and apparently Indiana winning a football game in Ann Arbor. Yet as Freshman running back Darius Willis was streaking up the sideline during Saturday’s fourth quarter, the crimson red heart of Hoosier nation surged with the belief that history was in the making. 85 yards later Willis scored giving Indiana a lead late in a game they had not won since 1967.
The last time Indiana beat Michigan in Ann Arbor LBJ was president and we hadn’t visited the moon yet. The last time Indiana beat Michigan in Ann Arbor gas was 33 cents a gallon, Super Bowl I had just been played and Charlie Chaplin released his final film.
In the end it was not meant to be as Wolverine Freshman Tate Forcier wrote another chapter in what, early on, looks to be a storybook career. To be clear, Michigan won a game they had no business winning and Indiana lost a game they had no business losing. But ultimately it was a game lost on the national radar for there were far too many upsets Saturday for anyone to spend much time talking about what almost was in Ann Arbor.
Despite this, two things should come about as a result of Saturday’s outcome. For Michigan, one can only assume the insane “Wolverine National Championship” talk we heard after they found a way to beat Notre Dame three weeks ago is gone, surely. For Indiana more may come from losing this game than one might expect. Televised on ESPN 2, the game reached far more households than ESPN U or the Big Ten Network combined. This being said, Indiana having such a dramatic performance on a stage as glamorous as the Big House on such a network as ESPN 2 will go further in recruiting than any 3-0 start against two MAC teams and Eastern Kentucky ever could.
Was it one game? Yes. Do we know what kind of team Bill Lynch really has on his hands? No. Will we find out next week when they play Ohio State? Most likely. But forget wins for the moment, IU needs more performances like this to both energize their fan base and attract recruits. Would it have gone further to win Saturday? Obviously. Does it go further losing by three than the 65-0 we’ve so painfully grown accustomed to? I’m not going to dignify that with a response.
For one bright Saturday afternoon Indiana’s football program caught lightning in a bottle. They came in a program ranked as one of the worst in the conference by the experts and, except for two plays in the first half defensively, they never once looked like they didn’t belong on the field with Michigan. A game that historically resembles a boxer working the heavy bag turned out to be every bit Ali v. Frazier, Tyson v. Holyfield or Nancy Pelosi v. anyone with a pulse. Does the game get Lynch a ticket out of the leaking lifeboat he and Charlie Weis appear to be trying to keep afloat? Not quite yet. And now, as far as plugging the leak goes, the boys are going to have to get real creative after Weis needed a fourth quarter drive to beat Purdue and Lynch threw their best hope (chewing gum) out of his mouth in disgust on Saturday. Strange as it may sound however, the loss to Michigan does get Lynch one step closer to his goal of building a program and, oh yeah- keeping his job at the same time.