They could see 1967, with five minutes left. Nine wins were on their racquet, and nine wins hadn't happened since the Rose Bowl season 53 years before, since Harry Gonso and John Isenbarger and all the familiar catechism of the most glorious of a modest crop of football glory days.
But Indiana cannot help being Indiana, speaking of that modest crop. Its legacy of trembling in the face of prosperity is simply too ingrained, too much a part of the DNA Tom Allen has worked so hard to alter. And so ...
And so, leading Tennessee 22-9 with five minutes left in the Gator Bowl last night, Indiana succumbed to its historic imperative. It Indiana-ed the thing up.
With 4:41 left it gave up a touchdown, then was immediately caught unawares by an onside kick even monks in the remotest regions of Tibet knew was coming. Thirty seconds later, the Volunteers were leading, 23-22.
After which Indiana, which had already missed a crucial extra point, missed a 52-yard field goal in a last desperate shot at avoiding an epic choke. And there was your ballgame, boys and girls.
Tennessee 23, Indiana 22.
Goodbye, nine-win season. Goodbye, Gonso and Isenbarger and Jade Butcher and 1967. The historic imperative is all, and it is one mean son of a bleep.
It waited until it could do the most damage to an Indiana team that put up the most wins seen around Bloomington and environs since 1993, and only time will tell us how much that damage will linger. It is certainly the sort of loss that can send a football team into the offseason haunted by vengeful might-have-beens, and it will be up to the relentlessly upbeat Allen to chase those haunts back into their dark corners.
In which case, he will earn the fatter paycheck athletic director Fred Glass so recently bestowed upon him.
He failed to do that last night. Making that failure a memory is now Job One.
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