TERRE HAUTE — There’s no point in sugar-coating Indiana State’s 26-20 fell-from-ahead overtime loss to Quincy on Thursday. It was the worst case scenario for the Sycamore program.
And even if one did want to want to sugar-coat an avoidable defeat, or qualify it with the fact that the Sycamores are extremely young, in the end, it doesn’t matter.
The majority of ISU’s fans don’t want to hear it.
In the 24 hours since the loss, the reaction I heard from many fans — not just the bandwagon ones who wanted to rush the field to celebrate the end of the nation’s longest losing streak and never set foot in Memorial Stadium again, but long-time supporters and donors — was one of visceral anger.
More than one person I talked to wondered why they even bothered to hope ISU’s misery was going to end. Others said they won’t attend another game until they see meaningful on-field progress.
Whether that’s heat-of-the-moment anger or emotion talking doesn’t really matter. Fair or unfair, perception trumps reality sometimes and that’s the bind the ISU football program finds itself in after a difficult loss.
There’s a significant gulf between the work that it takes to make ISU a winner and the emotional aspect of how quickly ISU fans want the Sycamores to be a winner. And the fall-from-ahead loss only widened it.
Coach Trent Miles has said from day one that his plan to make ISU football viable was to essentially start over when he became coach in 2007. It’s a process he started last year and it continues this season. His plan is to build depth to the point where ISU can redshirt players and have real experience on the field, not do it via short-cut, quick-fix JUCO and FBS transfers.
It’s the reason why ISU has 67 underclassmen on its current roster, many of whom made their collegiate debuts in Thursday’s game, some of them responsible for some of ISU’s mistakes and penalty woes.
Miles is 100 percent right to do it this way. Presuming the right players are recruited, it is the only way to make a program solid long-term. And as everyone, including Miles, have said, there’s going to be a lot of bumps in the road along the way.
All of that said, it is also 100 percent understandable for ISU fans to feel as supremely frustrated as they do too. The losing has gone on nearly unabated since 2004. You’d be insane not to be mad about it.
Despite the fact that Miles’ blueprint is a sound one, the vast majority of fans don’t care and grow frustrated when they hear about the process to become a winner. Perhaps that’s not realistic on their part, but since when has being a donor or a fan ever been grounded in pragmatism?
Outwardly, ISU fans seem to have a kind of gallows humor about their football lot. I hear plenty of self-deprecating jokes about the nation’s longest losing streak, etc.
But not too deep beneath the surface, I think nearly all of them are sick to death of being a punch line. Everyone is tired of reading “nation’s longest losing streak” attached to everything written about the Sycamore program, though it will be that way until that elusive win is achieved. The truth hurts.
Frankly, ISU has been lucky given that the losing streak has largely been under the radar. It hasn’t really entered the national consciousness, other than a shot across the bow in a Selena Roberts-penned Sports Illustrated column about ISU eliminating its tennis programs in May.
If the losing continues, you can bet that national outlets will pick up on it, and it will make ISU fans even more frustrated and embarrassed when the national media exposure the Sycamores get is grounded in its chronic losing.
This dynamic existed before last night’s game, but the nature of the loss served to magnify it.
Every one at Memorial Stadium wanted to believe, and for once, there were actual butts in aluminum seats. The attendance was announced at 7,216. The ISU folks smirk when I use the term “announced” attendance because the actual total is usually far less, but on Thursday, it really wasn’t that far off. There’s no question it was the biggest crowd I’ve seen for an ISU home game in the five years I’ve been here.
Would the misery end? After ISU built a 17-0 first quarter lead, not only did it appear the misery would end, but it seemed the Sycamores might blow the doors off the NAIA Hawks.
It turned out that ISU set itself up to do the most unpardonable sin imaginable in the eyes of any fan base — it let a beatable team off-the-hook. While Quincy got better as the game went along and deserves credit, ISU still had myriad opportunities to put the Hawks away and failed each time … too often via mistakes that are hard to pin solely on youth or learning how to win.
Nothing makes fans more angry then to set expectation high through early success only to crash-and-burn. When a 26-game losing streak is on the line, it’s magnified to the nth degree.
Add in the fact that Quincy is NAIA, was paid $30,000 to come to Terre Haute to play the game to be cannon fodder (these games aren’t scheduled for any other reason), and the fact that ISU got a NCAA waiver to play it before the approved Division I start date due to a SNAFU in the scheduling process (which cut down on valuable practice time for a young team), it just adds salt to the wounds.
Personally, I think Miles is on the right track and that ISU will be better this season. ISU has more pieces in place — especially on the defensive side — than it did last season when he started out.
However, the loss to Quincy means many fans are going to turn a deaf ear — and keep ticket money in their pocket — until that win comes. They are sick and tired of being sick and tired.
Who can blame them?
Todd Golden is sports editor of the Tribune-Star. He can be reached at (812) 231-4272 or todd.golden@tribstar.com.
From the Press Box
From the Press Box: Quincy loss was worst-case scenario for ISU football
- From the Press Box
-
-
FROM THE PRESS BOX: Peyton’s place belongs to Eli
The good people of Indianapolis justifiably puffed out their chests throughout Super Bowl week as the city received deserved rave reviews for the job it did as hosts of Super Bowl XLVI.
-
TODD GOLDEN: Teammates, colleagues express their loyalty to Weatherford
Sometimes you worry whether someone is stopping to smell the roses when they smell rosiest.
-
FROM THE PRESS BOX: Does melted ice reveal Belichick's heart of gold?
If you’re into Youtube — and who isn’t these days? — there’s a vintage television profile of then-Cleveland Browns coach Bill Belichick posted on the popular site.
-
TODD GOLDEN: Indiana State men caught between expectation, reality
The Missouri Valley Conference is hush-hush on how it puts together its matchups for the annual conference schedule.
-
TODD GOLDEN: Accentuating the positive with ISU's Odum
There’s something to be said for being your own worst critic, especially when it comes to sports.
-
TODD GOLDEN: Loss hurts, but national exposure is ... priceless
Trying to advance the philosophy that any publicity is good publicity is probably an effort wasted on a losing team less than 10 minutes removed from a disappointing defeat where victory had been oh so close to fruition.
-
TODD GOLDEN: The great playoff race is on for Indiana State football
The great race is on.
-
TODD GOLDEN: Fans owe ISU seniors 10,000
I have covered Indiana State football since the 2004 season.
-
FROM THE PRESS BOX: Indiana State has used up its playoff mulligan
It’s been a glass half-full kind of season for the Indiana State football team, so it was easy — and exciting — to get caught up in looking ahead to scenarios that placed ISU in the FCS playoffs, even if ISU didn’t win out.
-
FROM THE PRESS BOX: Not a coulda, shoulda for Sycamores
Indiana State's football team is getting tired of being graded on the curve of its own past futility.
-
TODD GOLDEN: Supernatural Shakir was a sight to behold
I’ve often heard it said when a player has a big statistical day that he’s racking up “video game numbers.”
-
TODD GOLDEN: Sycamore defense absorbs lesson
A win is a win, they say. And for Indiana State, none of the Sycamores are going to take back or put an asterisk next to their 48-34 victory over Butler on Saturday.
-
TODD GOLDEN: And now on to the normal part of the schedule
The Steve Miller Band would’ve appreciated Indiana State’s trip to Penn State.
-
TODD GOLDEN: Sabermetrics has changed love of baseball
I turned 40 this summer. No problem.
-
FROM THE PRESS BOX: No debate about quality of Vigo baseball
It’s standard practice for losing high school coaches — especially coaches who led teams on a deep postseason run — to heap praise on their seniors one last time. It’s even more so when one of those seniors was the rock of a given team for a four-year period.
-
FROM THE PRESS BOX: Season dies down, but ISU’s plate not empty
With coaching changes having mostly sorted themselves out and with recruiting having just entered its quiet period today, college basketball has settled into its more relaxed offseason mode.
-
FROM THE PRESS BOX: Winning spring more important than winning the spring game
Indiana State football coach Trent Miles has been involved in collegiate coaching since 1987. He knows better than anyone that there’s no one-size-fits-all way to approach the annual spring football game.
-
FROM THE PRESS BOX: Friday wait was worth it for Indiana State
Many have seen the famous Salvador Dali painting, “Persistence of Memory.” The most memorable images in the surreal painting are unquestionably the pocket watches that are drooped over a ledge, a tree branch, etc.
-
Many Sycamores, past and present, to remember
The minute it became apparent Indiana State had punched its ticket to the NCAA Tournament with a 60-56 victory over Missouri State on Sunday, I reflected on all of the moments in the previous seven years of covering the Sycamores that led to this.
-
FROM THE PRESS BOX: Sycamore AD Ron Prettyman explains Cal Poly interest
Editor’s note: Indiana State Director of Athletics Ron Prettyman interviewed and participated in a public open forum for the same position at Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo last week.
-
Paradigm shifts for Sycamores after UNI win
In many respects, it’s been an Indiana State men’s basketball season like no other in its recent history.
-
Odum shouldn’t be overlooked as MVC’s Freshman of Year
The cliché would state that Creighton forward Doug McDermott has taken the Missouri Valley Conference by storm from day one. The truth is that McDermott had the attention of MVC observers long before day one.
-
FROM THE PRESS BOX: Late turnover doesn’t define excellence from Jake Odum
You know what’s one of the best tests of how a player has gained respect? Listen to the way the road crowd reacts when that player has the ball in his hands.
-
FROM THE PRESS BOX: Tempo changes for worse on both ends for Sycamores
When Indiana State was on its six-game early January winning streak that saw it rise to the top of the Missouri Valley Conference, team chemistry was seemingly the biggest reason for the success.
-
FROM THE PRESS BOX: ‘Yeah, but’ … maybe ISU is for real
I had an eighth-grade reunion in Milwaukee last summer, the highlight of 2010 for me. Among the memories we re-lived, I had totally forgotten that my seventh-grade teacher nicknamed me “Yeah But.” As in, “Yeah, but …” I always seemed to have an argument for the answer he sought in class, whether my argument was right or not.
-
FROM THE PRESS BOX: ISU’s place in pecking order hasn’t changed
The nonconference portion of the college basketball season serves several purposes.
-
FROM THE PRESS BOX: Thompson’s latest honor stands apart from the rest
Anthony Thompson has won his share of trophies and awards.
-
From The Press Box: Waltman reception highlights ISU reunion
It seems like every time I’m around Royce Waltman, I have to brace myself.
-
From The Press Box: At its worst moment, Indiana State showed a lot
Everyone knows life is unfair … you just hate it when life proves it.
So it went for Indiana State’s football team on Saturday as it faced perennial power Northern Iowa. -
FROM THE PRESS BOX: Don’t get too worked up about preseason polls
The Indiana State men were picked where in the MVC Preseason poll? The Sycamores tied for fifth last year and have seven players back from a postseason team. Terre Haute is so excited about this team. They had to be picked in the top half of the league, right?
- More From the Press Box Headlines
-
Nordic Festival Puts North Korea in Spotlight
Greece Passes New Austerity Deal Amid Rioting
'Rumor Has It' Adele's Rolling in the Grammys
Coroner: Houston Autopsy Results Weeks Away
Raw Video: Whitney Houston's Last Performance
Grohl, Grammy Nominees Cut Up on the Red Carpet
Raw Video: Greek Rioting Ahead of Austerity Vote
Raw Video: Child Rescued After Kosovo Avalanche
Reaction to Houston's Death at Clive Davis Party
Pop Music Superstar Whitney Houston Dies at 48
Fuel Removal Under Way on Capsized Italian Ship
Severe Cold Wreaks Havoc in China
Whitney Houston's Church Mourns Her Passing
79 Turtles Seized at Shanghai Airport
Police: Houston Found Dead in Her Hotel Room
Fans 'Speechless' Over Houston's Death
Today in History for Tuesday, February 12th
And the Winner for Best Super Bowl Ad Is...
Stocks Fall Sharply As Greek Deal Is Held Up
Arab League Wants U.N. Help in Syria
Sandusky Can See Grandkids, Have Local Jury
'Bachelor' Free Falls into the Ocean
Apple of their eye at $500 a share
Adele's revealing "60 Minutes" interview
Rosenthal: A's sign Cespedes
Bobby Brown on Houston's Death
Turkey's first face transplant
Exclusive Video: Bobbi Kristina Leaving Hospital
Obama Unveils $3.8 Trillion Budget
Kelly Ripa's Fashion Faux Pas
Lusetich: AT&T Recap
Raw Video: Aurora Borealis As Seen From Space
Grammys 2012: Highlights
2.12: Pebble Beach Pro-Am -- Phil Mickelson
2012 Grammys: Rihanna
2012 Grammys: Taylor Swift
Exclusive Video - Whitney's Bodybag
FUEL TV: Punk Payback Gym tips
