I live in the heart of Georgia Bulldogs country, so naturally, you can find plenty of people in UGA gear everywhere you go. There’s a fair share of fans of other local and state schools — such as Georgia Tech or Georgia Southern — and we can see fans of other schools across the country, such as Auburn, Miami, and Notre Dame, dotting the landscape.
What I’ve never seen around here is a fan of the University of Indiana, not even this season, when the Hoosiers have dominated college football. I’m sure there are some Indiana fans in Georgia, but I just haven’t seen any of them.
Yet they’ve been showing up throughout the College Football Playoff, and why not? The Hoosiers have been unstoppable all season, and they’re poised to win the national championship. Quarterback Fernando Mendoza is an all-around good guy, and he won the Heisman Trophy for his incredible play. So it’s a great time to be a Hoosier fan, and there’s no doubt a bandwagon effect.
Side note: The Athletic’s Will Leitch lives in Athens, Ga., and he claims that he sees Indiana fans regularly around the Classic City. Granted, I’m not in Athens every day, but I grew up around it, spent five and a half years on campus at the University of Georgia, and make regular pilgrimages. I’ve literally never seen an Indiana fan there. (Anecdote isn't data, your mileage may vary, and all that.)
What we do know is that Indiana fans travel well. Leitch writes:
If you watched Indiana’s defenestration of Oregon on television, this is not necessarily news to you. It was not difficult to notice the explosion of noise that happened every time Indiana made a big play. Mercedes-Benz Stadium was, to my eyes, about 90 percent Indiana fans, and that’s a conservative estimate; I’ve seen three times more Saints fans at Falcons games than I saw Oregon fans. Hoosiers boosters took over Atlanta the same way they took over Pasadena on New Year’s Day and, I suspect, the way they’re going to take over Hard Rock Stadium on Monday.
Indiana hasn’t had a reputation as a football school, though head coach Curt Cignetti and his team are changing that quickly. However, the sudden rise in Indiana fandom stumps even those in the know. Leitch asked his friend, who runs Indiana’s sports media program and hosts a podcast about Indiana sports, where these fans are coming from, and the friend replied, “I had no idea. I’m as stunned by that as I am by how good the team is. Maybe more?”
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But is this influx of fans a bandwagon? Maybe, but there are legitimate reasons for us to see Hoosiers showing up and showing out in this historic season for the football program.
The University of Indiana boasts the largest living alumni community, clocking in at over 800,000. Over half of those live in Indiana, so it stands to reason that there’s a network of in-state folks excited about their alma mater. It also means that hundreds of thousands of potentially proud football fans are spread out throughout the country.
This kind of historic run naturally brings out rabidity in a fanbase, so it stands to reason that Hoosier fans would be ecstatic. And it also makes sense that the bandwagon might be picking up a few thousand more fans.
I’ll hop on the bandwagon for a few hours on Monday night. I’d like to see Indiana finish this astonishing run, but I’m also rooting for the Hoosiers to put an end to the narrative of “Carson Beck is so awesome because he transferred from Georgia to Miami.” Go Hoosiers — for a little while, at least — even though I never see your fans anywhere except on TV.
