Staff Reports

Indiana’s football team will spend New Year’s in Tampa, Florida prepping for the Jan. 2 Outback Bowl.

Sunday afternoon, the Hoosiers were invited to participate in the bowl against the University of Mississippi at Raymond James Stadium.

This will be the 13th bowl game in IU history, a pace that has picked up since Tom Allen became head coach of the Hoosiers four years ago.

“It is a tremendous honor to play in the 35th Outback Bowl against a great opponent in Ole Miss,” Allen said Sunday. “Our players, coaching staff, medical staff and everyone associated with our team worked hard to navigate through this difficult season and I am so happy everyone is getting rewarded for their efforts.”

It is not often coaches thank the medical staff for the team’s success, but in this year of the coronavirus it was a relevant nod. The team’s workouts were temporarily halted over the summer due to the COVID-19 pandemic and just this weekend IU lost the chance to meet Purdue in the traditional Old Oaken Bucket game because players on both sides tested positive for the virus.

Until then, IU made it through an abbreviated Big Ten season with better luck than many other conference members who had multiple games called off. The 6-1 Hoosiers played seven uninterrupted weeks.

Indiana competed in the Gator Bowl last year, losing by one point, but defeated three ranked teams this season en route to a No. 7 national The Associated Press poll rating.

“Making our second straight January bowl game shows where we are as a program and we’re not done yet,” Allen said. “We look forward to one more opportunity to represent Hoosier Nation.”

In a season when many leagues played unequal numbers of games and a dozen planned bowls were cancelled, Mississippi finished 4-5 in the Southeastern Conference.