FIU and ex-Coral Gables High star are a part of Indiana’s incredible story
Nobody expected this.
The Indiana Hoosiers at 10-0?
In football?
Prior to this season, the Hoosiers – a traditional basketball power whose football history stretches all the way back to 1899 – had never won 10 games in a season.
Ever.
Surely, nobody expected a 10-0 start that includes wins over Michigan, Nebraska, Washington, UCLA, Maryland, Michigan State and, yes, FIU.
Indeed, the FIU Panthers opened the season with a 31-7 loss at Indiana.
“It’s amazing what they’ve done this year,” FIU wide receivers coach Jay MacIntyre told The Miami Herald. “I don’t think anyone could have seen 10-0, but they’ve done it convincingly. Unbelievable job by (Hoosiers coach) Curt Cignetti.”
Indeed, Indiana went 9-27 the past three years.
Enter Cignetti, a 63-year-old who had gone 52-9 in his five seasons at James Madison, including 11-1 last year.
Cignetti has turned things around, much to the delight of Van Waiters, a Coconut Grove native and a former Coral Gables High star who is bursting with Indiana pride at the moment.
“I thought we’d be good this year,” said Waiters, a former linebacker who is in Indiana’s Sports Hall of Fame. “But I thought we’d lose at least two or three or four games.”
Those losses haven’t come. In fact, the Hoosiers have won more than double the conference games this year (7-0) than they had the past three years combined (3-24).
The Hoosiers football has been so bad lately that Lindy’s Magazine prior to this season predicted Indiana would finish 18th out of 18 teams in the expanded Big Ten Conference.
Here’s what Lindy’s wrote about Indiana: “Will IU ever see a bowl game again?”
The answer is “yes” as the Hoosiers this year are bowl eligible and they have a shot of qualifying for the 12-team College Football Playoff.
After a bye this week, the Hoosiers will visit Ohio State before closing out their regular season with a home game against rival Purdue.
Waiters, 59, hopes to be at that Ohio State game.
After all, he was a standout at Indiana from 1983 to 1987. Listed at 6-4 and 240 pounds, Waiters was a third-team All-American in 1986 and a second-team All-American in 1987.
In 1988, he was the Cleveland Browns’ third-round pick, and that started a five-year NFL career that also included the Minnesota Vikings.
Back in high school, Waiters was also an All-State basketball player.
“In football,” Waiters said with a laugh, “I wasn’t All-State. I was barely all-county. There was a lot of competition.”
Once he got to Indiana, Waiters wanted to play basketball, too. This was during the legendary days of coach Bobby Knight.
In fact, the Hoosiers – in Waiters’ junior year – won a national championship as Keith Smart hit the game-winning jumper over Howard Triche with five seconds left as Indiana rallied to beat Syracuse, 74-73.
Waiters so badly wanted to play on that Indiana basketball team that he had his high school hoops coach, Bill Sullivan, write a letter to Knight.
“He let us know that he doesn’t take two-sport players,” Waiters said of Knight.
Despite that rejection, Knight was apparently a big fan of Waiters.
“One day, (Knight) approached me on campus,” Waiters said. “He said: ‘You are a great football player. I expect you to do big things.’
“That shot my confidence through the roof. That was a phenomenal day for me.”
There have been a lot of phenomenal days for Indiana football this year, starting with the opener against FIU.
THIS AND THAT
▪ FIU (3-6, 2-3) will visit the Jacksonville State Gamecocks (6-3, 5-0) on Saturday in a Conference USA game. FIU must win its remaining three games to become bowl eligible.
▪ Jacksonville State is tied with Western Kentucky atop the Conference USA standings. While FIU was idle this past weekend, the Gamecocks beat host Louisiana Tech 44-37 in overtime.