Oklahoma's plays in his head, but IU's players on the field: ex-Sooner OC Kevin Wilson begins his coaching reign at Indiana rather ignominiously

IU Athletics video: Indiana University football head coach Kevin Wilson's press conference after the Hoosiers 27-20 loss to Ball State at Indy's Lucas Oil Stadium, his first game as Hoosier head coach. September 3, 2011.

http://youtu.be/GPRkx_-9eXU

Above, the crimson-colored "Win with Wilson" IU t-shirt I decided NOT to buy a few weeks ago. I decided that I would sit on my enthusiasm just a bit longer and wait and see via ESPN3 how my "Great Expectations" looked against Ball State Saturday night at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indy, five months before the Super Bowl is played there.

After all, you can't judge these things based on watching video and practices via the Big Ten Channel and the official IU Athletics YouTube Channel.

Good thing my intuition is so good!

Shirt is available at http://iuhoosiers.cstv.com/

Well, he's got Oklahoma's plays in his head, but IU's players on the field: former Oklahoma OC Kevin Wilson opens the Wilson coaching era at Indiana in rather ignominious fashion, losing to Ball State and looking lackluster in doing so.

But then me being me, the optimist, I remember that things started out VERY BADLY for Joe Gibbs his first year with the Redskins, too, losing his first five games in 1981.

Bob Kravitz of the Indy Star starts his Sunday column on the ballgame in a rather droll way, perhaps to ward off the uncomfortable silence of a losing effort that was closer on the scoreboard than it was on the field.

Wilson era opens with dud

In theory, the Kevin Wilson era at Indiana could have started in a more ignominious fashion.

For example, the team bus could have gotten lost on the way from Bloomington to Lucas Oil Stadium, or the club could have arrived with its red uniforms instead of its road whites.

But this was pretty ignominious.

Embarrassing is another word.

Ball State 27, IU 20.

It wasn't just the result; it was the way it was achieved.

Read the rest of the column at:

http://www.indystar.com/article/20110904/SPORTS15/109040362/Wilson-era-opens-dud

Terry Hutchens at the Star's Hoosier Insider blog doesn't bother trying to humor IU fans and gets right to what bothered them -us- the most.

Where do we begin? The new Indiana under Kevin Wilson Saturday night looked a lot like the old Indiana.

Read the rest of the post at:

http://blogs.indystar.com/hoosiersinsider/2011/09/03/looking-back-at-iu-ball-state/

You don't have to know much about Indiana Hoosier football to know from reading those two sentences above to know that isn't a good thing, and if you do know the subject like I do, it's like a chill going down your back.

That sense of unknown dread out there lurking below the surface...

The history of choking in the clutch... an errant throw right when you are close to pulling off the upset...the dropped pass in the end-zone in the first-half that you never get back...the huge second-half leads that you blow in consecutive weeks on the road against Northwestern and Iowa -last year.

This coming Saturday is the football home opener at Memorial Stadium against UVA, where niece #2 goes to school. They beat William & Mary 40-3 Saturday, so they must be looking forward to coming to Bloomington.

IU-Ball State highlights video: http://btn.com/2011/09/03/ball-state-knocks-off-indiana/

Recap of IU-Ball State game:

http://iuhoosiers.cstv.com/sports/m-footbl/recaps/090311aae.html

http://iuhoosiers.cstv.com/

http://www.youtube.com/user/IUAthletics

http://blogs.indystar.com/hoosiersinsider/

http://twitter.com/#!/indystar_hutch

http://www.youtube.com/user/InsideIndiana

http://indiana.247sports.com/

http://btn.com/

http://btn.com/schools/indiana/

http://bleacherreport.com/indiana-hoosiers-football

Finally something to smile about for Hoosier fans in a season of wasted opportunities

Been a little under the weather this weekend so my plan to drop a cache of posts here to get things stirring has taken a back seat to my health.
I did want to post this one, though, before IU's upcoming game in a few minutes against a reeling Michigan State team at East Lansing that I'll be watching on The BigTenNetwork, DirecTV Channel 610.


IU 52, U of I 49 - First win against ranked team while Tom Crean's been head basketball coach at IU.
Video highlights at:
http://www.bigtennetwork.com/generic/sports/video?autostart=true&bcpid=60234638001&bckey=AQ~~,AAAAAEBQhU8~,kLn_EtefUBn-jd4QuQdKKKEE0M4y3HUj&bctid=766801782001

It's not by mistake that I've chosen not to write much about this disappointing college basketball season, the third in the Tom Crean regime in Bloomington. (Or even said anything about Kevin Wilson being hired as the new football coach, a move I welcomed.)

There's a lot of misgivings and discomfort among some Hoosier fans I know and communicate with on a regular basis, not only over players that have failed to develop as expected (or in some cases, even regressed) but about wasted opportunities on nationally-televised games, cementing the idea among key high school players -and some fair-weather fans- that IU can't show more toughness and grit in close games, and emerge victorious.

While this victory over the Fighting Illini was certainly nice, especially at a packed Assembly Hall where devout fans have been eyewitness to more losing than at any time since I've been a Hoosier -and more since these students have been alive- I still find that a lot of very frustrated IU fans living far from the Midwest, are having a hard time accepting "moral victories."

You can count me among them, and you can see that in the agitated and exasperated emails from Hoosier faithful that are sent to the Hoosiers homepage of the Indy Star
http://www.indystar.com/section/SPORTS0601?odyssey=nav|s|hoosiers&nav=2

That's especially the case with knowledgeable fans whose base of understanding for Hoosier basketball, both history and personality context, extends decades, many of whom frequently respond to Indy Star reporter Terry Hutchens' Hoosiers Insider blog at
http://blogs.indystar.com/hoosiersinsider/

Hoosiers Insider remains a great resource for Hoosier fans living far from the rolling hills of Bloomington, and remains one of the few places that I can consistently go and find out something, from either Terry or a reader, that I didn't already know or had considered about the team and its history.

People with an institutional memory about the team that recall things that happened before I got to Bloomington in the fall of 1979 the way I STILL remember things about the 1972 Dolphins Perfect Season -whether scores of the games, the team roster, mini-controversies, et al- which was my first year as a Dolphins season ticket holder.

When IU plays Kentucky in mid-December, that's almost always been a nationally-televised Saturday afternoon game that got lots of eyeballs coast-to-coast. Now, it's almost forgotten and on ESPN2 or wherever it was, and not even brought up until late into ESPN's SportsCenter or into their radio programming -an after-thought.

The annual Michigan at IU ballgame which had so many memorable and clutch finishes from 1980-2000 while a CBS nationally-televised staple, has also become a victim of the recent mediocrity.

When I watched it recently on TheBigTenNetwork, it was hard not to think of all those games with Coach Knight getting the better of whomever was patrolling the sidelines for the Wolverines, and the confidence IU fans had with Damon Bailey or Steve Alford bringing the ball up-court with less than thirty seconds to play against those excellent Wolverine teams.

You knew that the fundamentals would be there and that guys would come thru in the clutch, and if they lost, it would NOT be for lack of a proper understanding of what they needed to do and where they needed to be on the court for that last shot.

Now, I have absolutely no idea what is going to happen from play to play, and whether a player will repeat the same mistake twice before getting pulled from the game.

Rebuilding is definitely a bitch.

The IU homepage at The BigTenNetwork website, full of IU-related stories & videos: http://www.bigtennetwork.com/subindex/schools/indiana