I’m an Indiana graduate but not an Indiana football fan.

Let me explain. I want my alma mater to have success at everything. Roughly 8 different times during the first Saturday College GameDay for football, I got chills watching from my couch in Orlando. At one point, I’m pretty sure I fought back tears as the GameDay crew explained how to play “Sink the Biz” at the locally famous Nick’s English Hut, where my wife (also an Indiana graduate who studied far more than I did) and I hosted our rehearsal dinner when we got married on the outskirts of Bloomington in 2016.

The 2024 version of Indiana football has brought me immense pride nearly a year removed from admittedly Googling “Curt Cignetti” for the first time (I confirmed before he said his signature catchphrase that he does indeed win).

But to be considered a fan of anything, one must endure the suffering, as well. An Indiana football loss has never ruined a Saturday for me. My fall happiness isn’t dependent on what the Hoosiers do on a given fall Saturday, so it would be stolen fan valor to liken myself to those who truly bleed crimson in the fall (IU basketball is a different story).

I prefaced this “I can’t believe this is actually happening” column with that disclaimer because while some might assume I can’t be objective about this personal subject, I can assure anyone reading this that I have 16 years of experience in that department.

Would that have been different if IU had a rich history of football instead of getting constant reminders amid this historic season that no Power Conference program has lost more games than the Hoosiers? Uh, yeah. Duh. But for so many Indiana graduates like myself, we learned long ago why years like this are almost inconceivable. Or at the very least, they’re only conceivable if you’re elite at the College Football ’25 video game.

Does that make us haters? Or does that make us fair-weather fans? I guess it depends on how you’d define that.

You see, some elements of Indiana football might not come up on the old Google machine like beyond the fact that IU football hasn’t won a bowl game since 1991. (The Hoosiers have only played in 6 since.)

One is that for so many of us during our college experience, going to football games is a fall tradition. Or rather, tailgating across from Memorial Stadium — in one of the more underrated scenes for such festivities — is a fall tradition. Actually stumbling across 17th St. and going into the stadium was a freshman tradition. For the rest of us, tailgating until kickoff, then going home to sleep and/or watch bigger college football games was our tradition (there was no better accidental alarm clock than when those drums would drop at 3:30 on CBS).

There was another not-so-flattering tradition for Indiana football that even the most diehard Hoosiers might not be aware of. If you ever wondered how a team that rarely filled its stadium would get full crowd shots for any sort of media guide cover or weight room wall, thank Ohio State for that. When the Buckeyes would come to town and fans would purchase their cheapest road tickets of the year, they’d fill the stadium … and provide the perfect setting for that aerial promotional picture of Memorial Stadium because red and crimson look pretty darn similar.

Cignetti changed that overnight.

My cousin, a current senior at IU who goes to every game now, will text me weekly videos of the scene from Memorial Stadium that looks like a venue on a different continent compared to the venue we saw my senior year when IU went 1-11 (13-35 without a bowl berth was my college experience). The headline “IU has sold out the rest of its home game tickets” was the type of thing that often couldn’t have even been written sarcastically ahead of the Old Oaken Bucket game (the regular-season finalé), much less in mid-October with 3 home games left.

It’ll be surreal to see a sold-out Memorial Stadium on Saturday at 3:30 ET on CBS as No. 8 IU looks to improve to 10-0 as a 2-touchdown favorite against Michigan. I can’t decide which part of that sentence is most unbelievable. All of it? IU has never won 10 games in any season, much less the first 10.

One of my most vivid sober college memories was in 2010. At the time, I was one of the football beat reporters for the Indiana Daily Student. That morning, I walked up Indiana Ave. from our 5-bedroom college house off N. Dunn St. I had an extra pep in my step because on that hazy, early-October day, 3-0 IU was set to host No. 19 Michigan (I was a bit too proud of the “Defending Denard” Robinson preview section headline that I came up with months earlier in anticipation that slowing down Michigan QB Denard Robinson would be a tall task).

The tailgate fields were packed and there was a certain kind of buzz because IU had lost 16 consecutive games against Michigan. But if IU could indeed defend Denard, it would perhaps earn an AP Top 25 berth for the first time in 16 years. As I got to the press box that day and eventually looked around at the sellout crowd of 52,929 fans, I had a realization that people rarely felt on a fall Saturday in Bloomington.

“This is what big-time college football feels like, huh?”

Unfortunately for IU, it didn’t defend Denard. Robinson’s 5-touchdown, 494-yard performance led Michigan to an all-too-familiar 42-35 victory, which was the first of IU’s 7 consecutive Big Ten losses that season. As it stands, the last time that IU beat Michigan in front of its home fans was in 1987. The “in front of its home fans” is a key distinction because naturally, IU ended the Michigan losing streak in 2020 … when COVID prevented any fans from witnessing it.

Needless to say, that’ll be a different story if IU can avoid a letdown on Saturday against the defending national champs. And sure, there would be a certain “this is why IU football can’t have nice things” if that letdown occurs. But the first 9-0 start in program history is a nice thing that won’t be taken away even if IU can’t beat Michigan in front of its home fans for the first time since the Ronald Reagan administration.

Maybe the only “letdown” of IU’s season will be failing to play a 60-minute game against Ohio State in Week 13. For some, that’ll be the only true measuring stick game for the Hoosiers’ 12-team Playoff credentials and they’ll ignore a 9-0 start with nothing but double-digit victories. Fair? I haven’t fully processed whether that’s fair because I still haven’t fully processed these first 2 months in Bloomington.

I can’t imagine IU students like my cousin making the walk up Indiana Ave. and tailgating before a potential home Playoff game at Memorial Stadium. I’m sure it felt that way walking up to the South End of Memorial Stadium to take in College GameDay. For plenty of graduates like myself, there was probably a pessimistic thought that IU’s season would peak that morning. Instead, Cignetti led IU to a pair of wins by a combined score of 78-27.

This isn’t just historically different; it’s inconceivable. Big-time college football in Bloomington? In November?!?

You don’t have to Google anything to process that. Just watch CBS on Saturday afternoon.