Deja blues in B-town

 There went Michael Penix, off the field, injured again. There went linebacker Micah McFadden. There went the All-America corner, Tiawan Mullen.

Oh, yeah: And the Indiana Hoosiers, darlings of the college football preseason, are 2-3 now. No. 4 Penn State coolly strangled them in Happy Valley, 24-0, a bloodless professional hit that left the Hoosiers both bloodied and bowed, and which everyone knew in their heart of hearts was coming.

The Hoosiers are not what they were a year ago, even though a lot of the same names and faces are still around. They're just Indiana ordinary again, despite LEO (Love One Another) and the all-for-one, one-for-all culture Tom Allen has brought to the program.

And you know what?

It's happened before.

Had a friend who's been watching IU football as long as I have point this out to me last night, as Indiana struggled even to make a first down against the Penn State defense: This is deja blues all over again. It's once more 1968, the year after the magical Rose Bowl year, the year Indiana went 9-1 and put up a game fight in Pasadena before losing to O.J. and USC, 14-3.

The next year the Triplets -- Harry Gonso, John Isenbarger and Jade Butcher -- were still around, along with plenty of others. But the magic was gone, and in '68 Indiana finished 6-4, 4-3 in the Big Ten. And the year after that, when Gonso, Isenbarger and Butcher were seniors, the Hoosiers went 4-6.

"Everything just fell into place for them (the Rose Bowl year)," my friend said, or words to that effect. "Just like last year."

Truer than true. In the Rose Bowl year, Michigan was down, Ohio State wasn't on the schedule and the Hoosiers pulled off a pile of zany escapes. Then they punched their ticket to Pasadena by beating No. 3 Purdue 19-14 in the Bucket game when the Boilermakers' Perry Williams fumbled at the IU 4-yard line in the final minutes.

And last year?

Same deal. Indiana beat Penn State when Penix was ruled to have broken the plane, beat a 2-4 Michigan team, beat Wisconsin for the first time in 18 years with their backup quarterback Jack Tuttle. Their only regular-season loss came at No. 2 Ohio State, 42-35, when a dramatic comeback fell just short.

Like Indiana in 1967, they were better than everyone thought they would be. Unlike Indiana in 1967, which went 9-1 in the regular season after going 1-8-1 the year before, the 2020 Hoosiers didn't quite ambush people the same way, having gone 8-5 in 2019.

Still, they lost to Ohio State 51-10 that year, lost to Michigan 39-14, lost to Michigan State 40-31. So maybe no one expected the Hoosiers to be quite that much better in 2020. 

In any case, here we are again.

It's not the season after '67. But it sure could pass for it.