There they were sitting in the northeast corner of the endzone. Looking at a camera and saying a 7-0 Indiana Hoosiers team was going to be bested by the 4-3 Washington Huskies. There were two guys on ESPN’s College Gameday panel that picked against the Hoosiers. Nick Saban? Hoosiers. Pat McAfee? Hoosiers. Guest picker Kyle Schwarber? Hoosiers. Lee Corso? Hoosiers. Two guys picked the Huskies. It was reminiscent of listening to Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville hanging out in Melville’s home called Arrowhead in the Berkshires. Wrapped in their protagonists and antagonists and chocked full of symbolism as they slighted the Transcendental upstarts back east in Concord. This ethical concentration on nature and self-reliance was too much for them. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau may be good guys but where is the story? In Bloomington Saturday, there they sat. A modern-day Melville and a modern-day Hawthorne. They can’t pick the Hoosiers. This feels too good. This isn’t our Big Ten Football. A Michigan man and a Buckeye. What did you expect? Kirk Herbstreit to pick the Indiana Hoosiers on the GameDay set in Bloomington? Never! Desmond Howard to pick the Hoosiers? Double-Never! Then Indiana, ranked #13 in the land and the only team not to be scored on yet in the first quarter of any game or yet to be behind on the scoreboard, soundly beat the Washington Huskies 31-17 in a workman fashion that the greatest novelist ever would have to appreciate. This is an American Football Renaissance.

ESPN College GameDay came calling. What do you do? Well, I got there early.

Memorial Stadium lit up before the light of day was a special sight.

Everything about the experience of last Saturday was new to me. I’ve seen more than a hundred games in this stadium. Nothing prepared me for what the day was going to hold. As one dear friend has offered to me more than once, “This is everything we ever talked about wanting.”

The whole College GameDay experience was surreal, up until Desmond and Kirk picked against the Hoosiers.

Want College GameDay sign? They were there to help.

What brought all of this home for me were two things. Just hearing the voice of Reece Davis from the speakers and seeing the Washington State flag that has long been a GameDay staple regardless of where the show is that week.

These things made it real for me. Otherwise, it was just some kind of dream.

Seeing Lee Corso in his vintage Hoosiers sweatshirt was more than I could ask for. I still remember him bouncing up and down the Indiana sideline when I was a kid. I’m not a kid anymore. But I sure felt like one for a few fleeting moments when I saw Coach Corso back where I know him from.

I have to tell you about this poor gentleman here. He was chosen for the $100,000 field goal kick just left of the set. They bring in a goalpost and so on. This poor guy. He was signing all the liability forms or whatever else is there and he was shaking like a leaf. The pen was shaking. The papers were shaking. If this guy has four kids, he won’t be as nervous as he was on this day when they get here.

I tried to help him out. “Keep your head down. Follow through. Toe straight.” Well, that was all fine and well until he decided to practice the full motion at 110% on grass that was uneven and a little slick. On his third attempt to give it his all and really follow through, his legs went flying forward over his head. He busted his ass bigger than life. I think he hurt himself. Pat McAfee, who hosts that portion of the show had an understudy kicking for himself and the hurt guy. He raised it to $150,000 each. The kid who kicked has some spring in his leg. I was shocked. He was so wide left it made those famed Florida State misses look like they were worth 4 points.

Here’s where the story brings us back to reality.

Coach Curt Cignetti has been called Coach Cig. Towels like this one were placed on each seat in Memorial Stadium the night before the game. It must have looked wonderful. When the stadium opened it looked like this.

and this…

I call these growing pains.

I call this Indiana Hoosiers Football team a bunch led like they played for Henry David Thoreau. SIMPLIFY was one of Thoreau’s messages. Can you imagine a guy who lived in the 1840s and never saw a computer saying, “Our lives are frittered away by detail.” That was Thoreau. Everything is relative. Coach Cig simplifies things with his mantras.

“We believe that with the proper preparation, the commitment, and discipline, that there’s no self-imposed limitations to what we can accomplish. Day in, day out. Play in, play out.”

“We play that way: one play at a time, six seconds a play. Every play’s got a life and history of its own.”

Henry David Thoreau would smile. I know I do. Coach Cig knows when you take over a football program, the muscles that need to be strengthened first are the ones from the neck up. That is one of things I enjoy the most about this team. The humbly take care of business like they belong there. No dumb penalties. Players don’t act as though they are running for public office when they make a great play.

I was delighted to be there with my good friends Adam Disque, Andrew Evertts, and Russell Harrell. Yes, I had a blue shirt on. I was following press box etiquette. You don’t root for a team in the press box. Well, if you do you keep it to yourself. I do.

When I am in the press box, I keep a play tally from start to finish in my own writing and vernacular. The game for me started like this:

Well. Here we are. This is everything. The last time I was in a full Memorial Stadium crowd filled with IU fans, I was watching Anthony Thompson run the ball. This is surreal. Kirk Herbstreit was his OSU self. Desmond Howard was his Michigan Man self. They disrespected the Hoosiers again. Of course they did.

Kickoff taken by Washington. Returner was CLOCKED at the 18-yard line. First and 10 Huskies own 18. SACK! 2nd and 18. False Start! 2nd and 23. Completion for 15 yards. 3rd and 8. INCOMPLETE! 4 and OUT! Intentional grounding….4th and 17.

That set the tone for this game. That is the way good teams start games on defense. Yes, Indiana is that good. I don’t care what Kirk Herbstreit thinks.

Oh, I know full well the Hoosiers will have to win 2 National Championships in three years before an SEC fan will give them the time of day. That is the natural order of things. I doubt Paul Finebaum knows the Hoosiers are undefeated. But he will.

This picture was taken with less than 3 minutes left in the game. The stadium was still full.

This old English teacher’s favorite literary period was the New England Renaissance. I have walked around Walden Pond on five different occasions. What I felt in Bloomington Saturday was akin to walking around Walden Pond. It wasn’t overwhelming. It felt okay. I know truth when I see and feel it. This Indiana University Football team in nothing short of An American Football Renaissance. You don’t have to rank a team higher for them to keep winning. You just look foolish in the process. #13 last week and # 13 this week.

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson