New Indiana defensive coordinator Bryant Haines once played a role in sending IU football into an all-too-familiar death spiral.
Coming out of the 2007 season, many Indiana fans found themselves in the dangerous position of believing the program might be about to embark on a turnaround.
Following 12 straight losing seasons from 1995 to 2006, Bill Lynch and the 2007 Hoosiers delivered on his predecessor’s vision, beloved late former Indiana coach Terry Hoeppner’s mission to play 13 games.
Indiana went 7-5 during the 2007 regular season before falling to Oklahoma State in the Insight Bowl.
And the Hoosiers started the 2008 campaign 2-0 after wins over Western Kentucky and Murray State.
But a humiliating 42-20 home loss to Ball State in week three sent Indiana back in the wrong direction once again — for a long time.
That game is remembered for Ball State’s offense gashing IU for 463 yards, and the tragic career-ending spinal injury suffered by Cardinals receiver Dante Love.
But IU trailed just 28-20 at halftime, and it was the Hoosiers inability to score at all in the second half that ultimately derailed any chance of staging a comeback. A key figure on the Ball State defense was senior linebacker Bryant Haines, who racked up eight tackles on the evening, including this big hit on Demetrius McCray.
New Indiana DC Bryant Haines back in 2008😬#iufb pic.twitter.com/GCcMOn3lRg
— Mike Schumann @ The Daily Hoosier (@daily_hoosier) January 19, 2024
In total, Haines would compile 336 tackles for his Ball State career, including seven sacks. The Ohio native earned All-MAC honors twice.
Meanwhile, Indiana would go on to finish the 2008 season with a 3-9 mark. Lynch was fired in 2010 after two more seasons with a losing record.
Things hadn’t improved a great deal in Bloomington when Haines returned to Memorial Stadium in 2012.
This time Haines was part of the IU program, hired by then head coach Kevin Wilson as a graduate assistant, a role he held with Indiana just for that 2012 campaign.
And history kind of repeated itself in 2012. After Wilson went 1-11 in 2011, the Hoosiers began 2012 with a 2-0 start and a week three home game against Haines’ alma mater, Ball State. The Cardinals shocked IU with a late field goal to pull off a wild 41-39 win, and Indiana would only win two more games the rest of the year.
Under Wilson, IU would go on to reach bowl games in 2015 and 2016, but back in 2012, that turnaround was still in its infancy. That’s what Haines remembers about the 2012 season he spent in Bloomington, and he believes on his third trip to Memorial Stadium, this time as defensive coordinator, he finds the Hoosiers with a completely different state of mind.
Haines has been with IU head coach Curt Cignetti for all but one season since 2014, when he joined Cignetti’s Indiana University of Pennsylvania staff. And that means, like Cignetti, Haines hasn’t done much losing over the last decade. So you’ll have to forgive him if he arrives in 2024 confident that a program known for losing is on solid ground.
“The culture feels a little bit different this time than last time (in 2012),” Haines said, after Friday’s practice. “Not to say it had a losing feel to it, but I don’t know if the program was ready to take off. I don’t feel that way anymore. I feel like something special could happen.”
Much has changed from a facilities standpoint since 2012 as well. Indiana completed the north end zone project in 2009, but the south end zone enclosure and many other updates have taken place since Haines’ prior full season in Bloomington.
“The locker room is great now,” Haines said. “The locker room before was even in a different spot over here. That’s much improved. The weight room with coach Derek Owings is really nice now, that’s a big improvement. The food down in the south end zone is better.”
Ball State isn’t on the schedule this year, but week three once again appears to be a game that will play a defining role in how this 2024 campaign ultimately turns out.
That’s when IU travels to UCLA to face the Bruins at the Rose Bowl — where they’ll almost certainly be the underdog. A few weeks ago at Big Ten media day, Cignetti playfully said what he thought about taking his team out West to play at the historic venue.
“We’re going to an old stadium to kick someone’s ass,” Cignetti said.
And just with that, you can probably get a sense for why things seem different this time at Indiana for Haines.
For complete coverage of IU football, GO HERE.
The Daily Hoosier –“Where Indiana fans assemble when they’re not at Assembly”
- Find us on Facebook: thedailyhoosier
- You can follow us on Twitter: @daily_hoosier
- Seven ways to support completely free IU coverage at no cost to you.
