The Indiana football team has high expectations this year and because of that have found themselves just outside the preseason top 25 for 247sports.
The Hoosiers have a lot of talent returning this year for their football team and expectations are as high as they have been in a long time. With the team they have coming back they are starting to get some recognition nationally and have found themselves ranked in some preseason top 25 polls.
According to 247sports, though, they are just on the outside looking in. They released their updated preseason top 25 on Tuesday and the Hoosiers are one 11 teams that also received votes. Fellow Big Ten schools Iowa and somehow Nebraska also received votes. The Hawkeyes make sense, but it is still a mystery why the Cornhuskers are getting love, but that is a story for another day.
Indiana was ranked in the AP top 25 for a week last year for the first time in 20 plus years, but they hope they can climb in for a second consecutive year in 2020. A fairly easy early-season schedule could help that out. If the Hoosiers could pull off an opening week upset of Wisconsin they could very easily be 6-0 and have an extended stay in the top 25.
The placement of the Hoosiers just outside the top 25 is not a surprise. Indiana has a lot of potential this year and could have a breakthrough year, but they are still in prove-it mode. They need to show it wasn’t just a one-year mirage and they need to do it again this year.
The fact that they are just outside, though, shows that they are being noticed and could easily make their way into the top 25 with early wins this year.
Indiana Football: Hoosiers face tough second schedule
The Hoosiers open their year on the road at Wisconsin, who 247sports has as the 10th ranked team right now. But after that, the schedule gets very soft until the end of October.
In a four-game stretch that stretches into November, Indiana will have to take on the number five, number one, and number 17th ranked teams according to this poll. In playing Penn State, Ohio State, and Michigan so close together it provides one of the toughest stretches of games for any team in the country.
It will be an opportunity for the Hoosiers to show what they are made of and is a season-defining set of games. Realistically if Indiana can win one of those games it would be a huge win, but if they could somehow pull out more than one if could be the best season in Hoosier history.
Preseason polls are basically meaningless, but they are still fun to look at and debate. It is even better when your team who rarely gets any mention is suddenly on those lists. Can the Hoosiers live up to the hype? We shall see, but one thing is for sure is that Indiana will not be a pushover this year.