Maybe it was all a bad dream.
Take care of Maryland and Purdue, and that’s all it has to be.
Seven consecutive weeks without a win. Achingly close losses to the nation’s elite. Repeatedly bumping up against the glass ceiling, unable to break through.
None of it has to matter. None of it has to be remembered. Win these next two, and the season comes full circle. The bowl — and more importantly, the .500 record — is clinched, and you hit your benchmark for the 2015 season.
It’s that easy. So please, for the love of God, IU football, make it that easy.
The experts are confident. Through it all, they’ve been projecting you at 6-6, in a bowl game, every week. They saw you go toe-to-toe with No. 1 Ohio State, No. 7 Michigan State, No. 9 Iowa and No. 14 Michigan. They saw the last two weeks of your schedule, and wrote those games off easily.
Oh, IU? That’s a bowl a team, without a doubt.
But they don’t know you like we do. How could they? Where they saw gutsy performances in prime-time, we saw homecoming, when you blew a 25-point lead to the Scarlet Knights. That was a game you were supposed to win easily, too.
But we can be made to forget — that’s the beauty of memory bias. And the Terrapins and the Boilermakers are here, tossed out like a life preserver, to help you do just that.
We hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but that’s OK. Just grab hold of the two worst teams in the Big Ten, and — starting this Saturday in College Park, Maryland — save the season, damn it.
Because there’s no two ways about it. Maryland is a putrid football team.
The Terrapins lead the nation with 28 interceptions in 309 pass attempts, which calculates to a mind-bogglingly bad interception per every 11 passes thrown. Their ineptitude is measurably historic, considering this mark is tied for worst in the FBS in the last 20 years.
For you, it is a godsend.
You might not remember, but your defense once led the conference in turnover margin with 12 takeaways in six games. Now — following a three-takeaway, four-game stretch in which you gave up 190 points — you have a chance to get your convictions back.
You say, in the words of junior wide receiver Mitchell Paige, this is the group. The group that will break the ceiling. The group that will change the program. And when you were 4-0, 4-1, heck, even 4-2, we believed.
Time to make us believe again.
Are you the team we’ve always known, the same old IU football, or are you the best 4-6 team in the country, the team that almost beat No. 1 Ohio State, No. 7 Michigan State, No. 9 Iowa and No. 14 Michigan?
If you’re the latter, then you’ll play the same way against the Terrapins as you did against ranked opponents.
If you are the IU football we thought you could be, then start by cleaning house in College Park.
vziege@indiana.edu
