With a new coach and new players, including quarterback Fernando Mendoza, who just won a Heisman Trophy last night, the Indiana University Hoosiers are in contention for a national championship title.
Indiana University quarterback Fernando Mendoza, who woke up Sunday as this year’s Heisman trophy winner, has come to embody his team.
A few years ago, Mendoza was a middling Miami high school player and the Indiana Hoosiers were the losingest team in major college football history. But this season, Mendoza and the No. 1 ranked Hoosiers are undefeated.They just upset powerhouse Ohio State to win the Big Ten Championship, and they are major contenders in their quest for a national title.
«There’s a little bit of an imposter syndrome», Mendoza said. «Whoa, am I supposed to be here? I was a two-star recruit. I wasn’t a five-star who’s supposed to be in this position, who’s supposed to be on the No. 1 team in the nation.»Just how bad was Indiana football?
Indiana entered this season with more losses than any other Division 1 football program – more than 700 defeats.
Last weekend, it clinched the Big Ten title for the first time since 1967. Don Fischer, who’s been the team’s play-by-play voice since the 70s, witnessed the team struggle for decades.
«A big problem for Indiana was we could not recruit offensive and defensive linemen», Fischer said.
Diehard fan and rock legend John Mellencamp has been watching the Hoosiers lose ever since his father took him to games as a kid. Mellencamp has been in the stands through thick and thin, and says at points it got «pretty thin.»
For years, he says, the tailgates drew more interest than the actual games and the stadium was less than half full. Mellencamp funded an indoor practice facility, the Mellencamp Pavilion, in 1996 in hopes it would lure recruits.
