How’s that “Win Today” thing working out for you, Wilson?

Well hello, there dear readers. If you’re a regular reader of OTP, you know that Monday is the Nathan show, and he certainly delivered yesterday. It was a nice little appetizer while the chef (yours truly) got the entrees ready for your consumption for this particular week. And what week is that, boys and girls?

IU HATE WEEK

[DISCLAIMER: Allow me to first say that hate week is meant in fun. It’s not an official evaluation of the academic profile of the school, their alumni, or their supporters. It’s a rivalry. As much as the IU fans don’t want to admit that, it is, however one-sided it may be. So if your comments will be some holier than thou spout about how football and/or athletics isn’t worthy of emotions like hate and how the academic profile of a school shouldn’t ever be poked fun of or how we are stepping over a line, do us all a favor and hit the little X on the top right of your browser. Or jump off a tall structure onto a rather hard surface. Either way. Now that we have that out of the way… let’s get it on.]

Saturday. 4 wake ups. That’s all that is between us and Hoosiergeddon. Only this time comes with no asteroid the size of Texas or Liv Tyler’s DSLs staring at a snowy computer monitor. It does however have a Texas sized ego in one Kevin Wilson and I’m sure Tom Crean’s better half has a tarty side to her. On Saturday Ball State travels to Bloomington where they will attempt to win their third straight against the Hoosiers and second straight in B-town and move within one game of .500 on the overall series. Do I need to tell you it’s big? Probably not, but I will anyway.

It’s big because it’s a game that BSU has to win to make going bowling move from the possible category to the probable category. It’s big because it’s the game of this week. And in true Pete Lembo style, the game of that week is the biggest game of all. It’s big for exposure and national attention, though the educated among us will see this differently. How a team that had to hang on to defeat Indiana State and then looked “impressive” against a first-year FBS program is a 3 point favorite over a team that hung 27 against a darkhorse national title contender blows my mind, but it at least allows for an “upset”. Perhaps most importantly it’s big for the statement it will make off the field to the people who don’t play. It’s big because hopefully, maybe, potentially, IU fans will finally realize that they are not in fact stratospherically better than Ball State. Hell, with a win this weekend, the flip side may be an easier case to make. Unless it’s competitive, perhaps new AD Bill Scholl should consider dropping the IU series. I’d hate to see our strength of schedule have a notable cream and crimson anchor on it. And that’s where Hate Week comes in. It’s time to vent. It’s time to have some fun. It’s time to call a spade a spade. And that’s what the next four days are all about. Allow me to explain.

Why do I hate IU? That’s hard for me to narrow down. It’s a composite of countless things that make my blood boil, the hair on the back of my neck stand up, and that weird post wake-up mouth funk to just sort of creep up unexpectedly. To borrow loosely from West Wing’s Robert Ritchie… IU fans are what my friends call superior sumbitches. You’re academic elitists and athletic snobs. There’s big rocks in the corner of your football stadium, there’s candy striped pants on buzz cutted white boys in Assembly Hall, a legacy of backwoods hillbilly derp-tastic fans that swear allegiance and loyalty to a basketball coach who at best was a gigantic asshole and at worst was a hypocritical bully that abused the very players he was charged with leading, and a general malaise within the football program when they actually did matter and actually were competitive. There’s the “We’re better than you and we know it” mantra that many people accept as fact that has no basis in reality. There’s the opinion that BSU football doesn’t deserve to stand on the same field as the mighty Hoosiers, despite winning two in a row. There’s a general sense of elitism and superiority when none should exist and the majority of your programs oscillate between irrelevance and a joke. And if it appears from time to time as if I don’t like you, well, those are just a few of the many reasons why.

Our posting this week will be a bit accelerated. Our podcast will be a hatetastic buffet of Hoosier disdain. You may even hear from Edge. Buckle up boys and girls, because this is about to get real.

Filed under: BallStateFootball, HateWeek |