Indiana
Michigan and Washington share ties to historic Indiana football run
HOUSTON — The coaching profession is a nomadic lifestyle. Coaches and their families bounce around from town to town amid changing jobs. Sometimes you buy a house, sometimes you rent. Sometimes you don’t need all your furniture.
That’s why Washington head coach Kalen DeBoer’s old kitchen table is currently in Michigan running backs coach Mike Hart’s house, a transaction made in Bloomington, Indiana.
“My wife bought it from him when they were moving out to Fresno,” Hart said with a laugh on Saturday.
Much has been made of the Indiana reunion between DeBoer and quarterback Michael Penix Jr. in Seattle, but the roots from IU connect through both Michigan and Washington ahead of Monday’s national championship.
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The 2019 and 2020 Hoosiers under Tom Allen produced the program’s best two-year stretch in three decades: 8-5 in 2019 and 6-2 in 2020. Seven people from that staff and roster are involved in this championship.
• Washington head coach Kalen DeBoer (IU offensive coordinator in 2019)
• Michigan running backs coach Mike Hart (assistant from 2017-20)
• Washington co-defensive coordinator William Inge (assistant from 2013-19)
• Washington tight ends coach Nick Sheridan (assistant from 2017-21)
• Washington starting quarterback Michael Penix Jr. (QB from 2018-21)
• Michigan reserve tight end A.J. Barner (TE from 2020-22)
• Michigan reserve quarterback Jack Tuttle (QB from 2019-22)
“There were great people there,” DeBoer said. “It made it enjoyable and that led to a lot of work getting done and the work led to success. When you have fun doing your job and you have fun coming to practice every day as a player, that’s what we had there. That’s why you see so many successful people and guys doing the things that they’re doing.”
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Allen had a lot of familiarity with DeBoer, both as a fellow NAIA coach in the mid-2000s and then on recommendation of the Eastern Michigan staff, where DeBoer previously coached.
“He’s very calm and creates vision for what he wants,” Allen said. “He just had the ability to make the right calls at the right times.”
After consecutive 5-7 seasons, Allen found his breakout year. The 2019 Hoosiers reached the AP Top 25 for the first time since 1994. All four regular-season losses came to ranked opponents, including one at Michigan State where Penix completed 20 consecutive passes at one point.
“Me being at Indiana allowed me to get here,” Penix said. “If I didn’t go to Indiana, I wouldn’t have met Coach DeBoer and probably wouldn’t be here. My whole path, I wouldn’t change it for anything.”
After one successful year in Bloomington, DeBoer became the head coach at Fresno State, where he’d served as an assistant from 2017-18. He took Inge with him to be his defensive coordinator. Sheridan was promoted to offensive coordinator at Indiana and continued to work with Hart — his former Michigan teammate. The momentum continued.
The 2020 Hoosiers beat Michigan for the first time since 1987, ending a 24-game losing streak in the series. They reached as high as No. 7 in the AP poll and finished 12th, their highest finish since 1967.
“That staff Coach Allen put together was a good group of guys,” Sheridan said. “Most credit goes to the players. They believed in the vision and committed to it. It was a special run. Everyone that was a part of that looks back on those times fondly.”
Michael Penix Jr. is no stranger to the Wolverines 👀
Throwback to when he led Indiana to victory over Michigan in 2020- will he do it again in the CFP National Championship with the Huskies? 🔮 pic.twitter.com/DuKqcvCfGi
— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) January 3, 2024
Those 2020 Hoosiers nearly played in the Big Ten Championship Game after the Ohio State-Michigan game was canceled due to COVID. But the Big Ten changed its championship criteria, putting Ohio State in the game due to the Buckeyes’ 42-35 win over the Hoosiers.
“We thought that we got screwed a little bit,” Hart said. “But it doesn’t matter now. I always thought we should have beat Ohio State that year if we wanted to go.”
The successful run changed the future of multiple schools. Michigan’s loss to Indiana was the low point of Jim Harbaugh’s tenure in Ann Arbor. He overhauled his staff in the offseason and hired Hart back to Ann Arbor. Indiana’s subsequent downturn coincided with the loss of those coaches and players. Highly-touted defensive coordinator Kane Wommack became the head coach at South Alabama after 2020. When the oft-injured Penix entered the transfer portal after the 2021 season, reuniting with DeBoer was an easy decision. The pair are 25-2 together in Seattle. Indiana, meanwhile, went 9-27 from 2021-23, and Allen was fired in November.
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Allen, who became Penn State defensive coordinator last month, now sees many of those Indiana building blocks in the national championship.
“You’re happy for everyone,” Allen said. “You’d love to still have all those coaches. We were hard-pressed to replace Kalen and Kane. That’s the challenge about being at a place like Indiana. When you have success, you can lose your players and your coaches now and it’s hard to replace. But I’m happy for them, without question. It gives you pride that you picked the right guys.”
The group remains close, and not just because of a kitchen table.
Penix and Tuttle have remained in contact and wished each other luck. DeBoer and the Washington staff invited Wommack to the Sugar Bowl last week. Allen saw the pictures. He texts them all regularly to congratulate them on the success. Either way, at least one of his former coaches and players will win the national championship.
“I told them all to go win it,” Allen said. “Only one (side) can, but you’re really just happy they’re all doing well.”
(Photo of Kalen DeBoer: Jeffrey Brown / Getty Images)
We loved our free-range childhoods. Now we’re fighting to make sure Hoosier parents won’t get arrested for giving their kids the same freedom.
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It’s tempting to think Democrats and Republicans can’t agree on anything these days, but the two of us wholeheartedly agree on this:
Our childhoods were awesome.
In fact, we loved our childhoods so much, we are co-sponsoring a bill that would ensure Indiana parents can let their kids enjoy their childhoods just as much. Under our bill, parents can let their kids play outside, walk to the store, romp in the woods and stomp in the rain without worrying that this wonderful independence could be mistaken for neglect.
The so-called “Reasonable Childhood Independence” bill has been passed in 11 states so far — red, blue, and purple. It is not a free pass for abusive parents. It is reassurance for all decent Hoosiers that they don’t have to worry about being investigated or arrested for giving their kids some unsupervised time.
House Bill 1035 simply says that “neglect” is when you put your child in obvious and serious danger — not anytime you take your eyes off them. This helps parents who want to give their kids a longer leash. And it helps parents in poverty who have little choice but to do so — for instance, a single mom working two jobs who lets her kid come home with a latchkey.
It also helps all the parents desperate to get their kids off screens: You take away the phone — and open the door.
Our own childhoods were as outdoors and free range as they come. Jake grew up in Michiana, running around, looking for trees to build tree houses in. Other times he’d jump on his bike and go to the ballpark with friends, or go get a burger or even, yes, some Big League Chew.
Victoria biked all over the place, too — after telling her parents where she was heading. (No cell phones back then.) There was a hill everyone loved to ride down and a 7-Eleven where she’d go with her friends for lunch, which consisted of … a Slurpee. Yes, your elected representatives made some slightly suboptimal choices as kids. That’s part of growing up. It was a magical time.
It was also foundational. Jake works in commercial construction when he’s not legislating. He credits the give-and-take of those unsupervised ballgames with building the client skills he uses to this day. (And maybe the tree houses launched his career in construction.)
Victoria went on to become an associate professor and program director in occupational therapy at Indiana University. Working with young kids, she has seen the slow decline in developmental milestones as the run-around childhood got replaced by a sedentary, screen-based one.
That’s another reason we are so keen to pass this bill. Autonomy isn’t something “nice” to have. It is crucial. We all know about the youth mental health crisis. Let’s make it at least as easy for kids to go outside as it is for them to go online.
Some people may think the reason a supervised, structured childhood has become so normal is because the crime rate is so high. But the murder rate today is lower than it was in the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s.
The Reasonable Childhood Independence bill allows parents to decide for themselves when their kids are ready to do some things on their own.
“As parents, you have a good understanding of where your children are on their level of responsibility,” says Rep. Ryan Lauer, Vice Chair of the House Family and Children Committee, who is also co-sponsoring this bill.
And yet we’ve all heard the stories of decent parents being investigated simply because they didn’t hover — like that mom in Georgia, Brittany Patterson, arrested in 2024 because her 10-year-old walked to town without telling her. Or that mom in South Carolina, Debra Harrell, a few years back. She let her daughter, 9, play at a popular sprinkler park while she worked her shift at McDonald’s. For this, Harrell was thrown in jail and had her daughter taken from her for 17 days.
As parents, we shudder at the thought of overreach like that. We also shudder at the thought of child abuse. By narrowing the definition of neglect, our law gives hardworking Department of Child Services personnel more time to focus on the kids who are truly in danger.
Hoosier parents deserve the freedom to take their eyes off their kids when they know their kids are ready. Hoosier kids deserve to enjoy that freedom. And if they use it to make a tree house or drink a Slurpee for lunch, well, that’s not against the law.
Rep. Jake Teshka represents Indiana’s 7th District (St. Joseph, Marshall and LaPorte counties). Rep. Victoria Garcia Wilburn represents Indiana’s 32nd District (Marion and Hamilton counties).
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An LGBTQ advocacy group is once again suing Loogootee, Indiana, claiming the city is ignoring a recent court decision ruling its actions unconstitutional and is pushing its festival out of the public square illegally.
The Southern Indiana city of 2,600 people and festival organizer Patoka Valley AIDS Community Action Group have fought for years over LGBTQ expression on city property, specifically where the annual PrideFest would be held.
The city had enacted a special events policy that would prevent the group from holding the festival at the public square downtown. The U.S. District Court of Southern Indiana handed the city a major defeat in August, ruling that the policy was too broad and violated organizers’ First Amendment rights.
Now, Loogootee has enacted another special events policy that mirrors several measures in the one that the court struck down. In response, the Indiana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents Pakota Valley, filed a new lawsuit against the policy and filed a motion alleging the city is disobeying court orders.
“Court orders must be complied with, and Loogootee, by enacting an ordinance that contains provisions enjoined by the Court, is in contempt of its lawful orders,” ACLU Indiana legal director Ken Falk said in a news release. “Moreover, the ordinance it has adopted continues Loogootee’s pattern of attempting to unconstitutionally restrict this celebration of the LGBTQ+ community.”
The new legal twist is the most recent development in what’s been a tense local culture war between the LGBTQ+ community seeking to publicly celebrate their identity and the strong, sometimes threatening, community pushback to their efforts.
Is Loogootee’s ‘new’ policy new?
Judge Richard L. Young listed three primary factors in his August ruling as to why he found Loogootee’s old policy unconstitutional: a 45-day event permit application deadline, small group thresholds, and event location limits. He also disagreed with the city’s health and safety reasoning for such rules.
Public institutions can legally establish restrictions on the time, place and manner of free expression as long as these restrictions are narrowly tailored.
Enacted Dec. 29, the new ordinance reuses the same language regarding the permit deadline and small groups but broadens the locations where an event can be held. Instead of limiting an event to one of two places, an event can now be held anywhere except within 240 feet of the town center’s fountain.
In its complaint, the ACLU argued that the “verbatim” measures and the new location restriction are all unconstitutional.
“The ‘new’ Ordinance is therefore ‘new’ in name only and, in reality, Loogootee has simply reenacted provisions that this Court has explicitly enjoined as unconstitutional,” the ACLU’s complaint reads.
Loogootee Mayor Brian Ader previously told IndyStar that the city planned to appeal the District Court’s decision, but an appeal was never filed.
The USA TODAY Network – Indiana’s coverage of First Amendment issues is funded through a collaboration between the Freedom Forum and Journalism Funding Partners.
Have a story to tell? Reach Cate Charron by email at ccharron@indystar.com, on X at @CateCharron or Signal at @cate.charron.28.
The No. 5 Oregon Ducks are preparing to face the No. 1 Indiana Hoosiers for the College Football Playoff semifinals. Ahead of the matchup, Oregon star linebacker Bryce Boettcher discussed the game, which will be a rematch of the Ducks’ only loss this season.
The Oregon Ducks are coming off a shutout win against the Texas Tech Red Raiders. Boettcher addressed how the team can keep momentum, but called Indiana a better opponent.
“I mean, we had a really good game. I think it just obviously gives you confidence. You can’t get complacent with that confidence. You got to realize that Indiana is going to be a way better team than Tech. Tech was a good team, but Indiana is better. At this point, it’s win or go home. We’re pumped for the opportunity,” Boettcher said.
What Sticks Out About The Rematch Against Indana
“A couple things defensively. First off, when you stop the run, they’re really good at running the ball. We got to do that. Got to cage your quarterback. Feel like he’s overlooked for how good he is at scrambling at times, getting out of the pocket. Got to do that, just do our job.”
How Oregon Has Changed Since First Game Against Indiana
“We’ve sewn some things up within our defense. As we played them, we installed some new defenses that we’re still working the kinks out of. Now we’re experts at it. Everybody knows their job in and out. We’ve had a lot of reps at it.”
How Much The First Matchup Against Indiana Goes Into Playoff Preperation
“It definitely comes into play. I mean, obviously, they’re not a new team but an evolved team, and so are we. I think more so, kind of correcting our errors in where we went wrong in the first game, doing some self-scout and recognizing that. They may try to expose that again in this next game. Yeah, it comes into play a little bit. We also watched new film because they’re an evolved team.”
The Challenge In Beating The Same Team Twice
“I mean, I think obviously that’s a narrative. I know teams have been beaten twice. Sometimes it doesn’t happen. I don’t know, I think Indiana is a good team. We’re also a good team. The better team’s going to win.”
What Being In The Semifinals Means To Bryce Boettcher
“It means everything. It’s a pretty rare opportunity. There’s four teams left. Pretty cool. Surreal. I’ll be happy once we get this win. Honestly, I’m head down, focused on the task at hand. But it’s a cool opportunity.”
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How Bryce Boettcher Is Handling The Magnitude Of The Game
“I mean, I’ve played a lot of big games in my year here, whether it be football or baseball. I feel like I do a pretty good job at handling the magnitude of the game. At the end of the day, it’s a football game. We play the game every day in practice. We’ve been in pretty dang big games. It’s just another game, but it’s win or go home, so I’m pumped for that aspect.”
How Oregon Is Handling The Long Trips
“It’s always cool when you get to spend some time together. Obviously, most of the time we’re spending time together, it’s pretty locked in at the task at hand. We try not to spend a whole lot of time talking about other stuff other than football. There are other times on the plane or in the hotel room when you have some downtime that you can come together, bond. So it’s been fun.”
How The Defense Can Install New Ways To Stop Indiana
“You can’t be the same team every time you play another team, or else they’ll just scout you, know what you’re in every single time.”
“You got to do your assignment, play hard. At the end of the day, the team that plays the hardest and does their assignment is going to win. Some variables, throw in some new things at a team, which is definitely important. When Indiana comes out, I’m sure they won’t do everything we’ve seen on film. They’ll have a few wrinkles. That’s the exciting part.”
What Went Wrong Against Indiana In October
“Just doing our job within our defense. Honestly, the past Indiana game, couple mental errors where I didn’t necessarily do my job in the body of the defense. Same goes for other guys on our team. I think just sewing that up, better understanding our opponent, having a better game plan going into the game.”
What Makes Indiana’s Offensive Line Good
“They’re smart, fast, and physical. I know up front in their run game, they play physical, and they do their job. They don’t have a lot of unblocked hats. I know in the screen game, they get out and are elite at kind of retracing and blocking for their receiver in the screen game, which was present in our last game. We’ve done a lot of screen drills. They’re a good unit. They play well together and do their job.”
What The Loss Against Indiana Meant For The Rest Of The Season
“I believe everything happens for a reason. I think we needed that to kind of wake us up. We came out of a big Penn State win, kind of thought we were pretty cool going into that week, pretty confident. Got a little lackadaisical with our prep, I think. It was a good wake-up call. The rest of the season leading up to this point is a pretty good testament to the way we responded to that loss.”
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