Given that Kalen DeBoer became the head coach at Fresno State, due to Jeff Tedford’s departure, a natural question facing the Indiana Hoosiers in the 2020s will focus on the ability of IU football to cultivate a high-level offense. That is a valid area of examination when looking at the big questions confronting the Hoosiers in the next decade.
Yet, the Hoosiers’ chops on offense are more a part of the larger question than the biggest question in itself. If one is to identify the biggest question staring the Hoosiers in the face as the 2020s begin, it’s more than just the offense. Indiana needs to show the Big Ten that it can beat the best teams in the league.
Indiana has played Michigan close several times in recent years — not 2019, but certainly in some of the years before that. Indiana has played Ohio State close in a number of first halves. Indiana has been known to be a pest to a number of upper-tier Big Ten teams, Penn State also as part of the mix.
Yet, while Indiana does bother a lot of the really good teams in the Big Ten, it hardly ever wins. If Indiana is ever going to rise to a higher level, or at least, if the Hoosiers ever want to get a realistic chance of raising their ceiling, they need to break through and notch a high-value win against one of the big boys in the Big Ten. More precisely, Indiana needs to beat one of those big boys when the big boy is at (or close to) the height of its powers.
Indiana’s 8-4 season in 2019 was certainly a productive and encouraging campaign. Indiana football fans would take a decade filled with 8-4 seasons. They would be justified in desiring that standard from their program; it would undeniably rate as a clear improvement.
That said, if Indiana ever wants to reach a higher level of achievement, it has to slay the dragon. Are the Hoosiers ever going to get to that point? The question looms over the program, and it’s going to be part of the story if IU football until the Hoosiers can change the equation. Indiana hasn’t made the Rose Bowl since the 1960s. Minnesota has shown it might snap a long Rose Bowl drought in the near future. Indiana has to be able to beat Michigan or Penn State to enter that same conversation.