For 66 years, Bill Murphy has been a loyal season ticket holder for Indiana football, rarely missing a game despite the team enduring 55 losing seasons and a long streak of holiday bowl absences.

Among the few games he missed, the 1968 Rose Bowl stands out. Indiana faced a formidable USC team, led by O.J. Simpson, losing 14-3, with USC eventually claiming the national championship. At just 15 years old, Murphy couldn’t convince his parents to let him travel to California alone. Little did they know, the Hoosiers wouldn’t see another bowl game until 1979, followed by a gap until 1986.

Now 77, Murphy wasn’t sure he’d witness another bowl game in his lifetime, prompting him to create a contingency plan.

“I told my wife, son, and daughter, ‘If I pass away before we reach the Rose Bowl again, take my urn, buy a program and a seat, place the program and urn on the seat, and I’ll be there with you,'” he shared.

Murphy’s tale is likely familiar to any die-hard Indiana football fan, though he admits there might not be many like him. Growing up in Bloomington, Murphy was a steadfast supporter of Indiana’s often-struggling football team, while the city collectively celebrated the successes of its championship-winning basketball team.

The script has since flipped a bit. Hoosiers fans have had more to cheer about the past season or two when it comes to football than basketball. A team that was once an afterthought in its community has a new brand of committed fans who have the chance to head to Pasadena for the program’s biggest game in years: Top-seeded Indiana will play Alabama on Thursday in the Grandaddy of Them All for a chance to advance to the College Football Playoff semifinals.

The program has reached new heights over the past two years under back-to-back AP Coach of the Year Curt Cignetti, finally abandoning the title of losingest program in the history of the Bowl Subdivision and handing the unwelcome crown to Northwestern earlier this year. Indiana finished the regular season as Big Ten champion with a perfect 13-0 record behind quarterback Fernando Mendoza, the school’s first Heisman Trophy winner.

Longtime fan Kevin Harrell wouldn’t miss the Rose Bowl, even though his last trip to the stadium wasn’t too long ago. When the Big Ten expanded with four West Coast teams in 2024, he took the opportunity to see his team play in the iconic stadium, thinking the mid-September matchup against UCLA could be the closest he’d come to seeing Indiana in the Rose Bowl this century.

“It’s beyond my wildest dreams,” Harrell said, admitting that having this level of confidence in the team is an unfamiliar feeling. “We have always expected the worst. We could always find a new way to lose the game. It’s been kind of weird how quickly I’ve gone from that way of thinking to expecting to win. I expect this team to win every time they take the field, and I think that’s just a testament to the job Curt Cignetti has done.”

Not all fans have earned their stripes like Harrell and Murphy. The Indiana football bandwagon is filling up.

Memorial Stadium reached the brim with new followers this season. “Heis-Mendoza” chants on Saturdays become common this fall, and for the second straight year, all four home conference games sold out.

Airlines have adjusted accordingly to the high demand. Delta, American and Southwest Airlines added additional nonstop flights from Indianapolis to Los Angeles in the days leading up to the Rose Bowl.

“People get excited because people like winners,” Murphy said. “(There are) not a tremendous amount of people like me that will go support their team win or lose, and I’ve seen a lot of losing football over the years.”

So now, 58 years later, Murphy finally gets the chance to make up for the missed game that has haunted him for decades.

“Fortunately for me, I get to go this year and actually sit in a seat and see the game,” Murphy said. “I’m still pinching myself, trying to make sure I’m not dreaming.”