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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
National
Maura Carey

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

CFP-Indiana Fandom - (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

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.

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