Ed Miller has been attending Indiana football and basketball games since the early 1970s and has never seen a decline like this before.

As the leaves change colors and blow to the ground and the action ramps up for one of college basketball’s true blue-blood programs, everyone around Bloomington is focused on what’s happening in the football stadium.

Here, Miller, 70, has been involved in three consecutive home sales; has seen spinning towels and decibel levels reach new heights, while the favored candy-striped basketball pants have been replaced by increasingly trendy candy-striped overalls. Yes, not even the start of basketball season can tarnish this season’s most incredible story in college football: the rise of the Hoosiers.

“It’s usually hard to keep going to football games this time of year, but this has completely turned around,” Miller said. “And now I’m a little disappointed in basketball, to be honest. I’m more excited about football than basketball, and I never thought I’d say that.”

For decades, Indiana football had been mired in mediocrity, or worse, irrelevance.

Indiana has the most losses (713) and the 10th-lowest winning percentage (.422) in FBS history. The Hoosiers’ three bowl wins are the fewest among Power 4 teams, and the 33-year run between postseason victories still remains the second-longest active drought among teams with multiple bowl bids.

How bad had things gotten? When broadcaster Joe Buck spotted the Indiana alumnus during a Monday Night Football broadcast a few years ago, Buck’s broadcast partner Troy Aikman jokingly asked if the Hoosiers were still playing football.

Curt Cignetti took the job at Indiana to change that image, and although fans loved his passion, they were skeptical of his bold, brash promise of immediate success.

“Hey, look, I’m so excited about this opportunity,” he shouted at a basketball game in December. “I have never taken a backseat to anyone and I don’t plan to start now. Purdue sucks. But so is Michigan and Ohio State.”

Nobody questions Cignetti anymore.

Nick Saban’s first recruiting coordinator at Alabama is a frontrunner to become this year’s national coach, especially after a 20-15 victory over the national champion Wolverines.

Indiana captured only its second series win since 1988 while perhaps fittingly completing the first 10-win season in school history against college football’s winningest program.

No. 5 Indiana (10-0, 7-0 Big Ten, No. 5 CFP) now has one more win than the previous three seasons combined and is free of the half-full stadiums that have become the norm in October. and November of past seasons.

“We were excited about the new coach. We knew the players would make a lot of transfers, but we could never have imagined 10-0,” said Jennifer Worman, 47, who lives in suburban Indianapolis. “This is unreal for IU football.”

There was no shortage of milestone moments in 2024.

— Indiana’s 77-3 victory over Western Illinois in Week 2 was the most lopsided win in school history, and its 56-7 victory over Nebraska six weeks later matched the school record for margin of victory in league play.

— The Hoosiers’ 42-13 victory over UCLA was their first victory in the Rose Bowl.

— Indiana beat Northwestern 41-24 to become the first player on the team to qualify for the bowl.

— They scored at least 40 points seven times, won by 14 or more points nine times and trailed briefly only twice all season.

— And if the Hoosiers get a win over No. 2 seed Ohio State, something they haven’t done since 1987, a win against rival Purdue (1-8, 0-6) could send them to their first Big Ten championship game.

We are on the verge of a season that only this locker room thought was possible.

“We have playmakers everywhere,” sixth-year quarterback Kurtis Rourke said earlier this season. “It makes my job a lot easier. The O-line is playing great, we can run and pass. We’re just clicking right now.”

Naturally, all of these wins have brought players like Rourke, the 2022 Mid-American Conference MVP, into the postseason awards conversation. Some even think Rourke belongs in the Heisman Trophy race.

He’s not quite alone.

Defensive end Mikail Kamara, a transfer from James Madison, leads the conference in sacks (9 1/2) and earned two national defensive player of the week honors after a 2 1/2 sack, 4 1/2 tackle for loss performance. Indiana reclaiming Michigan State’s Old Brass Spittoon.

Elijah Sarratt also previously played for Cignetti at James Madison and currently ranks fifth in the Big Ten in catches (38), yards (685) and yards per catch (18.0). He ranks sixth with six TD receptions.

While some would argue that a soft schedule helped the Hoosiers, it didn’t in other years.

Indiana may actually be the most balanced team in the country. Ranked second in scoring offense (43.9 points), seventh in scoring defense (13.8) and top 25 nationally in passing defense (23rd, 276.5 yards), run defense (1st, 72.7), pass defense (22nd, 183.3) It is located. turnover margin (tied for 12th, 1.0 per game) and takeaways (20th, 17th).

That’s enough to convince Indiana fans that the Hoosiers need to expand the 12-team playoff field whether they win or lose at Ohio State. And it brought back memories of Bob Knight’s three-time national championship run, doing something no one thought possible: Temporarily eclipsing basketball in Indiana while keeping the victory flag flying at Memorial Stadium for the 12th straight week.

“Football-wise, I’m checking off some boxes I never thought I’d see,” said Randy Pruitt, a 58-year-old Columbus, Indiana, native who has seen the Hoosiers exceed his wildest expectations. “Make a bowl, that’s probably what we thought. We would never be mentioned in the top 12 teams or in the play-offs. Maybe we are still overlooked, I don’t know. But it wasn’t on the radar.”