Ten men. Two vehicles. 3600 miles of road. The figurative culmination of 4 years of randomness, outrageousness and athletic devotion.
After enduring three seasons of heartbreaking IU football, 10 IU seniors (including TGOM's finest) will traverse this expansive nation to witness the greatest accomplishment by an IU team in 14 years: a bowl berth.
On Dec. 31, the Indiana Hoosiers will take on the Oklahoma State Cowboys in the Insight Bowl in Tempe, Ariz. I, along with nine other comrades - many of whom I've known my entire college career - will be there to cheer the Hoosiers on - because who knows if IU will ever make it to a bowl again before we are middle-aged, balding and irritable.
We witnessed DiNardo's final year (at least when we weren't covering our eyes). We embraced Coach Hep. We saw Kellen Lewis enter the game against Ball State as an unknown freshman and found hope. We felt concerned when Coach Hep left the sidelines, and we cried when he left this earth before any of us were prepared. But now the Hoosiers are playing thirteen. Now we have a team to rally around. Now we finally get to celebrate.
Austin Starr's field goal to bring the Old Oaken Bucket back to Bloomington and give IU it's first winning season since Saturday morning cartoons were the highlight of our week sparked a gridiron celebration unlike anything we could have imagined as scrawny freshmen. That was before The Rock was The Rock, before Coach Hep wanted us, before James Hardy became a man.
For us fellas, it's been a wild ride with plenty of highs and lows, but we're glad we stuck it out. We're glad we drug our asses across the tailgating fields into Memorial Stadium on those autumn Saturdays. We're glad we will be bringing in the New Year under a desert sky.
Our trip officially begins on Dec. 28 in Indianapolis and ends on Jan. 3. TGOM will be blogging the whole thing, right down to the 3 a.m. rest stop in Scalphead, Okla.
Plenty of incriminating pictures, recollections - maybe even videos - to follow. Until then, Go Hoosiers!
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