Indiana Hoosiers
2001 record: 5-6 (4-4)
Coach: Gerry DiNardo (first season, 51-49-1 in nine seasons elsewhere)
Starters returning: 6 offense, 5 defense, 2 kickers

Outlook: With Antwaan Randle El gone, the Hoosiers, who haven't had a winning season since 1994, figure to get pushed around even more in the rugged Big Ten.

	Around The Big Ten
	Illinois Fighting Illini
	Indiana Hoosiers
	Iowa Hawkeyes
	Michigan Wolverines
	Michigan State Spartans
	Minnesota Golden Gophers
	Northwestern Wildcats
	Ohio State Buckeyes
	Penn State Nittany Lions
	Purdue Boilermakers
	Wisconsin Badgers

All things considered, Gerry DiNardo was a good hire. He has Indiana roots -- he played at Notre Dame. In his first job, at Vanderbilt, he made a football backwater competent. At LSU, he knew some nasty pressure. And he's an upbeat leader who can recruit.

He'll draw from all of those resources at Indiana, which has been the Big Ten's least successful program lately for good reasons. Among them: Everybody else in the league has it going. Nobody has sparser natural recruiting territory. And if there's anybody from IU who prefers football to basketball, they're candidates for Ripley's Believe It or Not.

Into this fray, DiNardo has a reasonable number of returnees. The main things they're likely to find out this fall are how important Randle El was, and how rugged, top-to-bottom, the Big Ten is.

Fifth-year senior Tommy Jones finally will get his shot at quarterback, running DiNardo's passing-game "Midwest Coast offense." But even with some experienced players around Jones, IU's more talented Big Ten rivals figure to feast on this rebuilding squad.

Key game: How about Iowa on Oct. 19, its third Big Ten game? Indiana has a non-conference schedule built for success. If it can compete successfully against the Hawkeyes before taking on an imposing final five games, it could have a chance to finish near .500 overall.

Keep an eye on: Strong safety Joe Gonzalez, who leads a shaky defense. If IU is going to squirrel away some non-conference acorns and pull off any Big Ten surprises, it will need to do a better job on defense than last year, when it was touched for at least 27 points eight times. And Gonzalez will have to lead the way.

It's a good year if. . . Indiana doesn't embarrass itself. A good non-conference showing will be key. Randle El's offensive wizardry masked the talent deficit it faced week in and week out in conference play.

Herb Gould covers the Big Ten for the Chicago Sun-Times.