Another day, another W

 And now it's a Twilight Zone episode, this Indiana football season.

No, not because the Hoosiers went up to East Lansing yesterday and floor-waxed Michigan State 47-10 in the Old Brass Spittoon game, which most of America and even a healthy chunk of the Hoosier state itself probably didn't know existed. But it does, and now Indiana has the thing, and the more irreverent among us (OK, so me, then) are thinking that between the Old Brass Spittoon and the Old Oaken Bucket, Indiana could use some spiffier trophies.

Anyway, it's not the Hoosiers winning again that turns this into a Twilight Zone episode. Nor is it even that they're 9-0 for the first time in program history.

What makes it a Twilight Zone episode is how ordinary it's become.

As in; "Oh, look, Indiana won again."

As in: "Oh, look, Kurtis Rourke threw four touchdown passes two weeks after having his thumbnail torn off."

As in: "Oh, look, the Hoosiers fell behind for the first time all season and then scored 47 freaking unanswered points, and isn't that the sun rising in the East again?"

Because now Indiana winning football games is every bit as natural an occurrence.

Now the Hoosiers are expected to win. Now everyone has gotten used to the fact they're a real boy, and they win because they have real players, and their No. 13 ranking isn't Monopoly money after all.

What Curt Cignetti has wrought, in just nine games, is an Indiana program that expects to go up to East Lansing and strap 47 on Michigan State, and is in turn expected to, if not exactly do that, at least expected to win.

And, yes, that's a hell of a Twilight Zone episode for a football program with so much beige in its palette.

Fun fact, now that the Hoosiers are 9-0 for the first time ever: Across 137 years of playing football, Indiana is 200 games under .500 (512-712-44). It has lost 58 percent of the games it's played. It has won two conference titles and three bowl games in 137 years.

No wonder its fans and alums became notorious for never making it inside Memorial Stadium from the pre-game tailgate. No wonder the ones who did make it inside became notorious for expressing the following post-game sentiment: "Hey, Illinois only beat us by two touchdowns. That's pretty good."

Now the Hoosiers have Michigan coming next week, and those same fans and alumni fully expect to lay a sheep-shearin' on last season's national champs.

Now the IU alum sitting next to me at the bar last night is seeing the 47-10 score go final, and -- thinking about a certain game in Columbus, Ohio, in three weeks -- saying, "You know, Ohio State is beatable."

An Indiana guy is saying that.

Same sort of IU guy who used to be satisfied with losing by only a couple scores.

And now here comes Rod Serling, cigarette smoldering between his fingers, regarding us solemnly from beneath those sinister eyebrows.

Meet the Indiana Hoosiers, a football team for whom losing has always been as instinctive as breathing. But now a man named Curt Cignetti has arrived on campus from a tiny school in Virginia, and something remarkable is about to happen: The Hoosiers are not only going to win, but everyone will soon start EXPECTING them to win. Tonight's sojourn into the gridiron section of the Twilight Zone ...

Right?