Michigan State and Indiana Preview:
Also Rans That Can Destroy a Season

By Paul Smith
paul.smith@collegeblitz.com

PORTER, IND. — One program staggers from under the instability of a three-coaches-per-10-years atmosphere.

The other, historically, has hit the dizzying heights of one of the most famous games in college football history -- a 10-10 tie with bitter rival Notre Dame in 1966 that spawned one particularly compelling book by respected veteran writer Mike Celizic, the tale of Bubba Smith and Terry Hanratty, of Ara Parseghian and Duffy Daughter.

Michigan State, of course, most people know. A program of ups and downs, of exhilarating highs and ultra-depressing lows. And perhaps being a headliner in what arguably was the most famous regular-season game in college football annals.

Indiana, on the other hand, has been the historic Big Ten poverty pocket, a program so idea-challenged that by far its most successful coach in a generation -- Bill Mallory -- got fired.

The predecessor to ill-fated Gerry DiNardo, who begat current hopeful Terry Hoeppner, was a guy named Cam Cameron, a movie-star handsome guy with some National Football League background and a clue how to run an offense. His last team finished a feisty 5-6.

Not good enough, see ya.

I.U. football, three shots and neeeeext.

In East Lansing, every one of historic, hysterical Spartan Stadium's 72,500 seats is filled for the vast majority of Michigan State home games.

In Bloomington, the mantra goes, "What time is game time?" followed by this response: "What time can you get here?"

Michigan State-wise, optimism can lock wings with pessimism in the oddest places. The same Spartans team that crowns a nationally-ranked Wisconsin team 49-14 can allow a Big East doormat, Rutgers, to steal away with a 19-14 upset in steamy Piscataway, N.J. in last year's season opener.

In coach John L. Smith's third year in East Lansing, the hope is to pull away from last year's 5-7 and bowl-less memory as quickly as possible. Formerly a successful coach at Louisville, Smith's teams overall have won 5 out of every 8 games they've played. The Spartans, however, are only 13-12 in his two seasons.

But in the wacky world of M.S.U. football, there appears to be one constant, at least for the past 14 seasons.

Odd year = winning season (the Spartans are 44-28-1 since 1992 in the odd seasons).

Even year = losing season (Michigan State is 36-45 in the national election years).

In Bloomington, what hope is left springs eternal with the emergence of a new coach. Actually, Terry Hoeppner is far from new to Indiana, a rare Hoosier native who wanted to coach I.U. from the get-go, a guy who may in fact be what I.U.'s drastically-shrinking fanbase needs...

The forests of empty seats will still exist this fall, but season-tickets did jump a bit from 12,000 to 15,000 and there was a little more student interest.

But the fact that the Hoosiers play a rare Big Ten road game against a Mid-American Conference opponent, opening at Central Michigan, speaks volumes about the job ahead for Hoeppner.

I.U. football fans, a threatened species on all lists but the E.P.A.'s, are college football's Tampa Bay Devil Rays brethren: infrequent and usually thickly mixed with boisterous legions of folks wearing enemy colors. 

While he will be among the Big Ten's senior citizens agewise, Hoeppner has the energy of a man half his age, dashing hither and yon to spread the gospel of Indiana football and try to convince his listeners that by that, he's not referring to the high schools of his home state.

In the intervening eight months since he replaced DiNardo, the 1973 Notre Dame All-American guard who simply never attained the necessary administrational support group, Hoeppner has attended 50 different alumni and booster functions trying desperately to drum up support for the moribund Hoosiers program.

One can envision Prof. Harold Hill atop the platform truck and Indiana playing the role of River City. "It's not hard for me to sell, because I'm excited about this place," Hoeppner told the Chicago Sun-Times' Herb Gould.

But senior John Pannozzo, a Brooklynite who bought into the sales pitch of a former borough resident, DiNardo, is looking forward to this season, even though it means a shift from being a 5-feet, 11-inch, 235-pound plowhorse running back to middle linebacker.

And somehow, despite the years of frustration -- I.U. went 8-27 in the past three years and played to crowds that honestly dipped below 10,000 on more than one occasion -- Pannozzo manages to see a little sun cracking through those dark clouds that seem forever stationed over Bloomington.

"A lot of people just look at the record," Pannozzo told Gould. "They see 3-9, 2-10, 3-8 and say it seems like Indiana's not going anywhere..."

Yeah, well, the Hoosiers are, beyond debate, the losingest program in the Big Ten, even several laps behind Northwestern. They trail every school but Northwestern by double-digits in the all-time series, and are down to the Wildcats by eight, N.U.'s only winning series.

However, Pannozzo touches on a point that again reflects the administration's impatience with the coaching personnel and the program in general. "...In my freshman year," he continued with Gould, "we were blown out of several games. The next year, it was not as much.

"And last year, we were that close to having six wins...."

But the height of embarrassment took place in front of about 12,000 at Memorial Stadium against a demoralized Penn State team last Nov. 13.

The Hoosiers, on the verge of going into the end zone and beating the Nittany Lions for the first time ever, faced a first-and-goal at the Penn State one-foot line. And four thousand Penn State fans rallied to a near-deafening level and actually intimidated the I.U. offense as it neared the line of scrimmage.

With one gigantic gulp of courage, the Lions' season-long tough D denied I.U. the end zone and protected Penn State's 22-18 lead to perfection. The sight of Hoosiers' quarterback Matt LoVecchio pleading for quiet from the end-zone rowdies was other-worldly.

It was a particularly low moment for Indiana. Yet maybe, in the end, you can allow that Pannozzo's newfound optimism may come into play before this season runs its course. "The players have the confidence and the understanding that we can turn this thing around."

But the I.U. talent level would argue otherwise. Still, these are college kids and Hoeppner did win two-thirds of his games at the fabled cradle of coaches, Miami of Ohio, coaching current Pittsburgh Steelers standout quarterback Ben Roethlisberger to M.A.C. dominance.

How strong-armed quarterback Blake Powers operates I.U.'s spread offense, how he succeeds in getting wide receiver Marcus Thigpen involved in the offense and how Pannozzo's defense, led by linebacker Kyle Killion and defensive end Victor Adeyanju, fares in attempting to at least slow down some of the league's runaway offenses will answer virtually all questions.

I.U. yielded a staggering 343 points last season. The task this year, with the league opener at Wisconsin, games at No. 11 Purdue and No. 4 Michigan and "neutral" home games against No. 6 Ohio State and No. 15 Purdue, where Hoosiers supporters will certainly be outnumbered, will make this task straight uphill.

Enough said.

Michigan State-wise, the season will hinge on several early-season developments. The Spartans open with M.A.C. middle-rung Kent State, but then host Hawaii, which last year benefitted from an officiating pineapplefest in Honolulu that allowed the Rainbows' offensive linemen to bend, fold, twist and mutilate the blocking rules to produced a bizarre -- and angering -- 41-38 loss that knocked the visitors out of bowl consideration.

The Spartans and 74,000 grandstand vipers will be lying in wait for coach June Jones and his Rainbows. But then the schedule steers the Spartans to Notre Dame for a joust with Charlie Weis's new-look Fighting Irish.

For junior quarterback Drew Stanton, the byword is consistency. He completed 64 percent of his passes last fall, but at the most inopportune moments, the Spartans offense hit the wall hard against the league's tougher defenses.

They scored all right, but had a ridiculous time holding onto the ball in crunch time. One such memory, a scar that lingers into this season, was a blown two-touchdown fourth-quarter lead at Michigan that led to a 45-37 overtime loss. Be sure Oct. 1 -- U-M's visit -- is circled in evergreen on many a Spartan fan's calendar.

Another lowlight: in the second half of a 32-19 home loss to Ohio State, the offense simply puttered out and Ted Ginn, Jr. and the Buckeyes offense overcame a halftime deficit.

Smith and offensive coordinator Dave Baldwin appear to have given Stanton a more comfortable system in which to work, one that will utilize the Farmington, Mich., product's considerable scrambling skills and blend them with super-quick running back Jason Teague, a potential 1,000-yard-plus rusher.

"It's the comfort in the package," Baldwin told the Lansing State Journal's Joe Rexrode. " 'This is my read, it's covered. Here's my No. 2 and I go to it.' Last year, it was 'Here's my read, I'm gone (scrambling).' And that wasn't bad, but we want to take that out of him and let the running backs do that now."

Which will produce -- what? Teague, who ran for 113 yards in M.S.U.'s 49-14 shocker over Wisconsin last fall, figures to be prominent in Michigan State's running attack. Probably not another Kevin Duckett or Blake Ezor, understand, but certainly someone who will take some of the pressure off Stanton.

The offensive line looks solid, with big tackle Mike Gyetvai ready to lead a group that could emerge as one of the Big Ten's best. Two senior wideouts -- Matt Trannon and Kyle Brown could stretch some defenses, although they are not often mentioned in the same breath with the Jason Avants, Steve Breastons, Santonio Holmeses or Dorian Bryants of the league, to say the least.

The defense looks fairly solid and if it exacts some serious vengeance against Jones' high-scoring Hawaii passing game and what surely will be a whole new look under Charlie Weis at Notre Dame, the Spartans could be in for a big season.

Big if.

But, but with homies aginst Northwestern and Indiana following the Michigan-Ohio State early October test, Michigan State could be looking at 5-3 as goes to Purdue, then Minnesota and closes out with Penn State at East Lansing.

Certainly a 6-5 bowl season isn't out of the question.

Indiana's if is in front page-high capital letters. Even in the best-case scenario, three or four wins will have to serve as the ceiling this year. Word is Hoeppner has been meeting with some early success on the recruiting trail, landing a couple of Illinois top 50 commitments early on.

But for now, the 25-30,000 Memorial Stadium regulars will have to break out the 47-year-old Sinatra hit, "High hopes," and sing it regularly to convince themselves that Terry Hoeppner just might be the guy who gets Indiana football back on the Big Ten map.