Indiana football's rise to national title contender rewards fans who endured decades of losing

Bill Murphy has been an Indiana football season ticket holder for 66 years. He says he has rarely missed a game even though 55 of them have been losing seasons in a historic stretch of bowl-less holidays.

One of those rare misses stands out: The 1968 Rose Bowl, when Indiana lost 14-3 to O.J. Simpson and a USC team that went on to be crowned national champion. Murphy was 15 at the time, and his parents weren't on board with sending him to California alone. But neither Murphy nor his parents could have anticipated the bowl drought that followed. The Hoosiers didn't make another bowl until 1979, and after that, 1986.

Now 77, Murphy wasn't sure this day would come again. So a backup plan was established in case of an emergency.

“I told my wife, son and daughter, I told them, ‘If I die before we go to the Rose Bowl again, I want you to take my urn and buy a program, buy a seat, set the program and urn on the seat, and I’ll be there with you guys,’” he said.

Murphy's story would resonate with any lifelong Indiana football fan, though he warns there may not be many. He grew up a dedicated supporter of Indiana's losing football team in Bloomington, a city that rallied around the powerhouse and championship-winning basketball team.

The script has since flipped a bit. Hoosiers fans have had more to cheer about the past season or two when it comes to football than basketball. A team that was once an afterthought in its community has a new brand of committed fans who have the chance to head to Pasadena for the program's biggest game in years: Top-seeded Indiana will play Alabama on Thursday in the Grandaddy of Them All for a chance to advance to the College Football Playoff semifinals.

The program has reached new heights over the past two years under back-to-back AP Coach of the Year Curt Cignetti, finally abandoning the title of losingest program in the history of the Bowl Subdivision and handing the unwelcome crown to Northwestern earlier this year. Indiana finished the regular season as Big Ten champion with a perfect 13-0 record behind quarterback Fernando Mendoza, the school's first Heisman Trophy winner.

Longtime fan Kevin Harrell wouldn’t miss the Rose Bowl, even though his last trip to the stadium wasn't too long ago. When the Big Ten expanded with four West Coast teams in 2024, he took the opportunity to see his team play in the iconic stadium, thinking the mid-September matchup against UCLA could be the closest he’d come to seeing Indiana in the Rose Bowl this century.

“It’s beyond my wildest dreams,” Harrell said, admitting that having this level of confidence in the team is an unfamiliar feeling. “We have always expected the worst. We could always find a new way to lose the game. It’s been kind of weird how quickly I’ve gone from that way of thinking to expecting to win. I expect this team to win every time they take the field, and I think that’s just a testament to the job Curt Cignetti has done.”

Not all fans have earned their stripes like Harrell and Murphy. The Indiana football bandwagon is filling up.

Memorial Stadium reached the brim with new followers this season. “Heis-Mendoza” chants on Saturdays become common this fall, and for the second straight year, all four home conference games sold out.

Airlines have adjusted accordingly to the high demand. Delta, American and Southwest Airlines added additional nonstop flights from Indianapolis to Los Angeles in the days leading up to the Rose Bowl.

“People get excited because people like winners,” Murphy said. “(There are) not a tremendous amount of people like me that will go support their team win or lose, and I’ve seen a lot of losing football over the years.”

So now, 58 years later, Murphy finally gets the chance to make up for the missed game that has haunted him for decades.

“Fortunately for me, I get to go this year and actually sit in a seat and see the game," Murphy said. “I'm still pinching myself, trying to make sure I'm not dreaming.”

Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here. AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football

Bill Murphy, 77, an Indiana football fan, walks through the hallway of his home in Greenfield, Ind., carrying sports hats and a golf bag Wednesday Dec. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Obed Lamy)

A vintage sports program sits in a photo album collected by Bill Murphy, 77, an Indiana football fan, at his home in Greenfield, Ind., Wednesday Dec. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Obed Lamy)

Bill Murphy, 77, an Indiana football fan, looks through vintage sports programs in a photo album at his home in Greenfield, Ind., Wednesday Dec. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Obed Lamy)

Bill Murphy sits on a bed and looks at memorabilia hanging on the wall in a room at his home in Greenfield, Ind., on Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Obed Lamy)

Bill Murphy points to a wall of framed sports photos in a room at his home in Greenfield, Ind., Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Obed Lamy)

A potent winter storm brought blizzard conditions, treacherous travel and power outages in parts of the Upper Midwest on Monday as other areas of the country experienced plunging temperatures, strong winds and a mix of snow, ice, and rain.

The snow and strengthening winds began spreading Sunday across the northern Plains, where the National Weather Service warned of whiteout conditions and blizzard conditions that could make travel impossible in some areas. The wind and snow created “a pretty significant system for even this part of the country,” said Cody Snell, a meteorologist with the Weather Prediction Center.

A strong area of low pressure tracking from the Great Lakes into southeast Canada was bringing snow to parts of Michigan on Monday, he said. Powerful winds and heavy lake effect snow were expected across the Great Lakes into New York, and rain and a wintry mix in the northeast.

This storm system could be considered a bomb cyclone since it rapidly deepened from the Midwest into the Great Lakes, Snell said. Storm intensity is measured by central pressure, so the lower the pressure, the stronger the storm.

The very strong cold front meant parts of the central U.S. woke up Monday to temperatures up to 50 degrees F (28 degrees C) colder than a day earlier, according to the Weather Prediction Center. The winds brought “dangerous wind chills” that were expected to drop as low as minus 30 F (minus 34 C) in North Dakota and into Minnesota into Monday.

Snowfall in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula ranged from 19 to 24 inches (48 to 61 centimeters), said Ryan Metzger, a National Weather Service meteorologist. More snow is expected in the coming days, but it will be “much lighter, a little bit here or there,” he said. “Nothing like what we had overnight.”

In New England, there were reports of freezing rain in parts of northern New York with that threat extending into Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, Snell said, noting that it can put a strain on power lines and trees.

In California, the weather service warned that moderate-to-strong Santa Ana winds were expected in Los Angeles and Ventura counties through Tuesday, with a high risk for downed trees due to soaked soils. Recent powerful storms brought the wettest Christmas season to Southern California in years.

Nationwide more than 350,000 customers were in the dark Monday morning, with about a third of those power outages in Michigan, according to Poweroutage.us. There were more than 3,500 flight delays and more than 600 cancellations at U.S. airports on Monday, according to the flight tracking site FlightAware.

An EF1 tornado with estimated peak winds of 98 mph (158 kph)touched down in Illinois' Tazewell County on Sunday morning, destroying two outbuildings and snapping off numerous trees and power poles, according to the weather service’s office in Lincoln, Illinois. On Monday, the office was surveying damage in Macon County after severe thunderstorms moved through the area on Sunday.

Most of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula was under a blizzard warning Monday morning, according to the weather service with wind gusts of up to 60 mph (96 kph) expected along parts of the southern shore of Lake Superior. Blizzard conditions continued in some parts of northern Iowa on Monday morning.

Forecasters warned of 1 to 3 feet (about 30 to 91 centimeters) of lake-effect snow from Monday through Thursday and high winds, with gusts up to 75 mph (121 kph), in western New York on Monday. Similar conditions were expected along Lake Erie in Michigan and Ohio.

In the South, meteorologists warned severe thunderstorms are likely to signal the arrival of a sharp cold front — bringing a sudden drop in temperatures and strong north winds that will abruptly end days of record warmth throughout that region. The colder temperatures in the South are expected to persist through New Year’s Day.

The storm is expected to intensify as it moves east, drawing energy from a sharp clash between frigid air plunging south from Canada and unusually warm air that has lingered across the southern United States, according to the National Weather Service.

FILE - An American Airlines plane arrives at the O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Sunday, Nov. 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)

People cross 7th street in the heavy snow on Sunday Dec. 28, 2025 in downtown Minneapolis. (Jerry Holt /Star Tribune via AP)

Devon Jordan, of Brainerd , helps a person start their car durning heavy snow fall on Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025 in downtown Minneapolis. (Jerry Holt /Star Tribune via AP)

Heavy snow falls along Nicollet Mall Sunday Dec.28, 2025 in Minneapolis. (Jerry Holt /Star Tribune via AP)