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Friday, Nov. 1
The Indiana Daily Student

0-11 season still a possibility

Somehow every year, I find a way to justify IU, DePaul and Syracuse in the NCAA's Final Four. \n Those are my teams, and I just cannot pick against them. The same goes for my hometown Cubs and Bears. When someone offers a bet that either team will lose ' no matter who their opponent is ' I throw my money in like a chump. The problem is I think with my heart not with my brain, and I'm just way too optimistic.\nAt the beginning of the football season, I did it again. I picked the Hoosiers to start the season with five consecutive wins and said IU would head to its first bowl game since 1993. Like a parent to a four-year-old, coach Cam Cameron told me his team was improved and I believed him. Trick me once (last year), shame on you. Trick me twice (this year), shame on me.\nWell, it is too late to have my prediction taken seriously, but I would like to withdraw my optimism because I've lost all faith in Cameron and the Hoosier defense. They suckered me into thinking that being the nation's most improved defense was a realistic goal. \nBut after allowing 82 points in two games, they rank 108th in the country. If IU continues to play the way it has, there's no reason the Hoosiers can't finish the season 0-11.\nThis is my final year here, and I'm fed up with IU losing. When Cameron arrived my freshman year, there was a feeling on campus that he was here to save IU's football program. I was certain by the time I graduated that the Hoosiers would be respectable. I knew it would not happen overnight, but I figured Cameron would have more than 10 wins in his first 35 games.\nAfter Saturday's all-too-common near-victory, Cameron once again went into his spiel that his team was going to make good things happen in the next nine weeks. As he spoke, I sat in the tunnel near IU's offense more pissed than ever about the state of IU's football team.\nI know not to expect Cameron to say the season is over or that his defense sucks, but having to listen to the same story throughout my stay at IU just pushed me over the edge. I finally had enough. The tunnel was cold, but I continued to get hotter and hotter as I got more upset. I just stared at Cameron and athletics director Clarence Doninger for making my four years of watching Hoosier football so aggravating.\nAround the country, coaches are turning around programs like South Carolina and Illinois in only a few years into teams that receive votes in national polls. Not once in Cameron's four years has he been near receiving a vote. The question is, how long should it take to turn around a program?\nBefore Cameron, Bill Mallory took the Hoosiers to a bowl in his third season. Neither Lee Corso nor Sam Wyche did anything in their brief stays with IU, but, before them, John Pont needed only three seasons to take IU to the Rose Bowl. \nThis is Cameron's fourth year, and this should be his last if IU doesn't improve. He will have three more years on his contract after this season and Antwaan Randle El for one more year, but I'm sure the administration was thinking those last three years of his tenure would be spent on top of the mountain rather than still climbing it.\nNeither the fans nor 'Twaan nor the offense deserve this. Randle El is one of the nation's most talented quarterbacks that will do anything to win, but for three years he's had to sit on the sideline, watching his defense blow victory after victory. In his 23 games as quarterback, he has won eight, lost eight by 10 points or less and has lost 11 after putting at least 20 points on the board. Only four times in his career has IU scored less than 14 points. \nUnfortunately, Randle El has blamed himself for a lot of the Hoosier's losses. After the Kentucky loss, he had a look of disappointment as he spoke of how he wished he could have done more. Because he never points fingers other than at himself, and he sacrifices every ounce of his body to his team, Randle El will always be a champion in my eyes. He tried to carry IU Saturday, but once again the defense handed him too much weight. Because he could not come through in the end, he felt as if it were his fault, and that's just wrong.\nThis season, with a 36-point average, IU's offense ranks second in the Big Ten and 18th in the nation and almost anywhere in the nation, that is enough to win.\nI knew not to get excited Saturday when IU took a 26-14 lead late in the second quarter, because as always, the defense would unravel and lose its composure as if it were a guest on The Jerry Springer Show. While watching the defense do just as expected, I saw the season flash before my eyes. No longer did I feel as if I was covering the second game of the season, but rather the eighth or ninth.\nWatching IU on Saturdays is no longer anticipated, but feared. The heart just cannot take many more close losses. It's just too painful. If they're to lose anymore maybe they can do it early, so at least the few faithful IU has left will have time to pick up the final minutes of Notre Dame or a national contender game.\nEven though I've lost all optimism with the football team, I'm sure when March comes around I probably will have Mike Davis and the Hoosiers in the Final Four, along with the 'Cuse and the Blue Demons, because I never learn.

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