Still crushin' it

At some point now, you start to feel sorry for the naysayers. They are running out of nays to say, and panic surely must be welling up: Omigod they won AGAIN. By 50 points. Could it be they're actually GOOD? No, wait, I can't say that! Wait, I just did! Omigod ...

And so on, and so forth.

So on, and so forth, as your Indiana Hoosiers juggered the naut out of poor UCLA yesterday, 56-6, and, oh, look, they're 8-0 now and still crushin' it. Fernando Mendoza collected four more touchdowns, three passing and one running. The Hoosiers scored on a pick six two plays into the game; the offense scored on its first three possessions; and Indiana led 35-3 at halftime. 

Omigod, they won AGAIN ...

And, yeah, OK, so it was only UCLA, a 3-4 bag of hammers coming in. But the Bruins started the season 0-4 before firing their head coach, and they'd won three straight coming in -- including that road win over Penn State in Happy Valley -- and their last loss was a narrow 17-14 decision against a 5-3 Northwestern squad in Evanston.

So it wasn't as if they were playing hideous football. They whipped Michigan State 38-13 in East Lansing, which is worse than No. 25 Michigan whipped the Spartans in East Lansing yesterday. That's not the kind of team you'd expect anyone to spin-cycle 56-6.

But the Hoosiers did it. And you look head now at who they have left, and, yeah, they've still got Penn State in Happy Valley, but the Nittany Lions have lost their stud quarterback for the season and seem to just be marking time until winter. 

Outside of that, it's just Maryland, Wisconsin and Purdue, who are a combined 8-15. And half of those eight wins are Maryland's.

So what's that mean?

That means there's a very real shot -- a better shot than not, even -- that Indiana is 12-0 heading into the Big Ten championship game.

Omigod! You can't say THAT!

Sorry. Just did.