BLOOMINGTON – Indiana spent all offseason acting as something of a punching bag for the national (let's be honest, mostly southern) college football media.

There were mighty efforts from that contingent for months to invalidate IU's College Football Playoff appearance in 2024 by deriding the Hoosiers' schedule and insisting no such thing could ever be allowed to happen again.

From many of those same pundits, there were prognostications that Illinois, a year after going 10-3, could be "this year's Indiana." That is, a perennial also-ran Big Ten team that rides a veteran core to a dream season.

So much for that.

Indiana is this year's Indiana. The 19th-ranked Hoosiers made that clear and then some Saturday at Memorial Stadium, when they blitzed the then-No. 9 Illini 63-10 in as comprehen

See Full Page