Stampede Blue
The NFL divisional round is about to start this weekend. Not to downplay the Wild Card round, but this is when things start getting serious. The stakes are simply higher after some of the not so serious teams have been eliminated. We are left with the big dogs. The Indianapolis Colts aren’t one of those teams this year, but they have been there before and as a franchise, know what it takes to hoist a Lombardi. There is another team that is facing incredibly high stakes, but they have never been here before. They haven’t even been close, but they are providing the January football Indiana fans crave.
The Indiana Hoosiers are set to face off against the Miami Hurricanes in the biggest game of the program’s history. Curt Cignetti and his team have been playing “their biggest game ever” for a month now as they keep clearing levels that weren’t even previously dreamt about. They have a chance to do one of the most improbable things in sports; take one of the worst programs and turn it into a champion.
Colts fans know a thing or two about January football and the quest for a championship. It is hard. So hard. Peyton Manning and the Colts had crack after crack at it and between the usual suspects of Pittsburgh, San Diego, and New England, clearing the hurdle seemed impossible. When the Colts finally did, it was pure jubilation. If the Hoosiers can, it will be pure chaos. A team this bad shouldn’t be this good. What Indiana is doing by mowing down their opponents is what Ohio State does or Alabama used to do, not Indiana. Indiana was the grass, not the lawnmower.
The Hoosiers have captured lightning in a bottle and the attention of the entire country. Maybe it isn’t lightning. Maybe it is something more sustainable than that, more self-sufficient. Watching the portal and recruiting class points to something that will be around long term. Will every year take them to the National Championship game? No, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be in the mix more times than not. To even say that is remarkable.
Football in the year’s coldest months used to be reserved for the Colts. Tears of sadness and of joy were reserved for the boys in blue. Not this year, though. The 2025 Colts are now a memory. The 2025 Indiana Hoosiers are alive and well. The hope is they will win on Monday. If they can capture the championship, they will go from alive and well to immortal because champions never die.
