BLOOMINGTON — Indiana football athletic director Scott Dolson didn’t get much rest over the weekend.
After the No. 13 Hoosiers matched their best-ever start at 8-0 with a 31-17 win over Washington, he traveled to Knoxville to attend the basketball team’s exhibition against Tennessee.
He shook hands with IU fans sitting courtside at Thompson-Boling Arena and went back to the locker room for a brief chat with coach Mike Woodson, but the events of the previous day were never far from his mind.
Dolson was still being inundated with texts from around the country about IU’s successful turn hosting ESPN College GameDay.
Students camped out overnight for a chance to get on camera and thousands of fans lined up on the South Lawn during the live broadcast that put the spotlight on an undefeated football team firmly in the conversation for a spot in the College Football Playoff under the program’s first-year coach Curt Cignetti.
“It was massive,” Dolson said. “You could just feel everybody come together, the whole university and community.”
It was the first time IU hosted ESPN’s flagship college football program on a Saturday. The show was on campus for the Hoosiers’ 2017 opener against Ohio State, but that game took place on a Thursday night.
“When the GameDay crew left, we wanted to make sure they couldn’t wait to come back and everybody embraced that,” Dolson said. “We wanted to make it special.”
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GameDay’s visit was a homecoming of sorts for Lee Corso.
Corso, who has been part of the show since its inception, spent a decade coaching the Hoosiers before transitioning into broadcasting.
In a bit of happenstance, the school previously planned a 45th reunion to celebrate the 1979 football team that was coached by Corso for the weekend of the Washington game. That team went on to beat BYU in the Holiday Bowl for the program’s first-ever bowl win.
GameDay kicked off with Corso riding a double-decker bus onto the set alongside his former coaches, players and staff members from the ‘79 team. It was the same way IU arrived at Memorial Stadium for Corso’s first game as coach back in 1973.
Corso donned the same red pullover that became a staple of his tenure.
They held multiple events throughout the weekend including a dinner the night before the game. GameDay taped a segment with Corso and members of the team that aired during the show. Bloomington Mayor Kerry Thomson also joined the show to declare October 26 “Coach Lee Corso Day.”
“It was one of the goosebump weekends,” Dolson said.
Dolson’s first memories of IU are of that 1979 team.
The Michigan City native was in the stands at Memorial Stadium for the Hoosiers’ home opener against Vanderbilt that year. Dolson still has vivid memories of cornerback Tim Wilbur’s 70-yard interception return for a touchdown in the second half that broke the game open.
“I was 12 years old when my grandfather brought me to Bloomington campus for the first time in my life,” Dolson said. “That was my introduction to Indiana University.”
A memorable moment for Dolson came on Friday when Corso stopped by the athletic offices for a brief chat with Cignetti.
“He was so supportive and so happy for coach Cig,” Dolson said. “It was great to see.”
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Cignetti doesn’t like to take his focus away from the practice field, but he’s made time for a series of high-profile media appearances in recent weeks. He twice appeared on Pat McAfee’s show and visited with Jim Rome, Scott Van Pelt and Rich Eisen.
He even squeezed in a brief visit to the GameDay set before the game against Washington kicked off.
It gave a much larger audience — ESPN announced GameDay averaged 2.0 million viewers last week — a chance to see the swagger Cignetti brought to Bloomington back in December. Dolson sensed that same confdence in the first conversation they had over the phone back in November.
“We wanted a winner,” Dolson said, at the time. “We wanted someone with some swagger, with some confidence that can really bring that to our program and help establish the identity of IU football.”
Cignetti builds on that new-found culture every time he gets in front of a microphone, and Dolson loves every minute of it.
“He’s just so authentic,” Dolson said, of Cignetti’s recent interviews. “He loves to coach, he loves the blue print and loves to win. The confidence he has not only spread to our players but to our fan base as well.”
Michael Niziolek is the Indiana beat reporter for The Bloomington Herald-Times. You can follow him on X @michaelniziolek and read all his coverage by clicking here.
