Indiana Football Ranked for First Time Since 1994

The Hoosiers check in at No. 24 this week, more than 1,300 weeks after their last appearance in the AP Top 25 poll.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Back on Sept, 20, 1994 — long before any current Indiana football players were even born — the Hoosiers were ranked No. 25 in the AP Top 25 football poll. A few days later, they went to Wisconsin and got beat 62-13, never to be heard from again.

Until Sunday.

Once again, for the first time in more than 25 years — that's 1,308 weeks, if you're counting at home — the Hoosiers have found a home in the AP poll, checking in at No. 24 with 108 votes. For good measure, they are No. 25 in this week's coaches poll.

The Hoosiers received no first-place votes (wink, wink). 

It's been so long that Indiana has been ranked that Tom Allen was a high school football coach in Tampa, Fla., back in 1994. Indiana was coached by Bill Mallory that year, and it was his last winning season with the Hoosiers. Since then, Mallory, Cam Cameron, Gerry DiNardo, Terry Hoeppner, Bill Lynch, Kevin Wilson and now Allen have tried in vain to get the Hoosiers back to national recognition.

And now, with the Hoosiers at 7-2, it's happened again — after a bye week, no less.

They got in this week because Kansas State and Wake Forest both lost to fall out of the top 25, Indiana moved up, and it's probably a good thing, because No. 9 Penn State — which was unbeaten until losing at Minnesota on Saturday — and No. 14 Michigan are next. They Hoosiers travel to State College, Pa., this weekend and then host Michigan on Nov. 23 in their home finale.

Now that the Hoosiers' drought has been snapped, the longest Power 5 streak belongs to the Purdue Boilermakers. They haven't been ranked since 2007.

Indiana is No. 24 in the AP poll.

The longest drought outside the top 25 among Power 5 teams now belongs to Purdue (2007.) #iufbhttps://t.co/NaXc3o8pIE

— Jon Blau (@Jon_Blau) November 10, 2019