Why the Indiana Hoosiers should go to the Music City Bowl: The Definitive Guide

We here at Crimson Quarry often like to use this platform in much the same way one would use a megaphone and a rooftop. There are a lot of bad opinions on the internet, we have the privilege of amplifying ours.

Every now and then, however, we come up with a good idea that we think can benefit the program we love along with its crazed fan base. It started with #IUFB4GAMEDAY which, while ultimately falling short, showcased the awesome power the average fan can wield with a Twitter account.

So we're asking for y'all's help again. This Sunday, bowl invitations are going to be handed out to teams across the country and recent changes in determining those invitations gives bowls and conferences more latitude than ever to select teams based on far more important factors than conference standings. We've made no secret about our preference:

Let's try and send the Indiana Hoosiers to the Music City Bowl.

Can internet magic influence a conference's bowl selections? We have no idea. To the best of our knowledge, it has never been attempted on any grand scale. But let's give it a go, shall we? Here's why we believe in #IUFB2NASHVILLE, and why you should too:

1. The Indiana fan base hasn't had a travel-friendly bowl game in over two decades.

Sure, much of this is the by-product of only appearing in two bowl games since the new millennium, but Indiana's most recent bowl appearances involved New York City the day after Christmas, a day that might as well be Christmas Day to most families. Self-containing Christmas on one day is something you can do as long as literally no one else in your family gets married, but as soon as that happens the Christmases start multiplying and you try and tell your mom you're skipping to go out to New York City and watch your 6-6 football team play a glorified exhibition. It's a disaster.

Prior to that, it was TEMPE, ARIZONA on New Year's Eve. You have to go all the way back to the 1990 Peach Bowl to find a postseason game that Indiana fans could reasonably drive to.

Nashville is a mere four hours from Bloomington! And the date of the game (Friday, December 30th) makes it both the ideal place and time for the Hoosier faithful to invade.

2. There is a tailor-made match-up awaiting them.

Given the Music City Bowl's tie-in with the SEC, the possibility of reigniting the rivalry between Indiana and Kentucky is infinitely more tantalizing than any story line you can think up between Minnesota and Georgia or whoever. Indiana and Kentucky haven't played a scheduled game in football or basketball since 2011, but the rivalry remains intense, particularly throughout southern Indiana.

Just imagine the crowd it would draw. Thousands of Indiana fans would head to Nashville for the latest chapter in the IU-UK Rivalry while thousands of Kentucky fans would flock to the city to make sure everyone within a five-mile radius knows they don't consider the Hoosiers a rival.

3. With a likely ranked Pac-12 opponent waiting out west, the Big Ten should send 8-4 Minnesota out there.

In order to set themselves up for the most successful bowl season possible (in terms of wins and losses) the Big Ten should strongly consider sending 8-4 Minnesota out to the Foster Farms Bowl to play the likes of Stanford or Washington State and leave Indiana the opportunity to take on a middling SEC team. Minnesota has slightly better S&P+ numbers and is likely to fare better against the fourth-choice Pac-12 team, in theory, than Indiana.

4. So what can I, the good football fan, do to make this happen?

It's hard to say! But I know what can't hurt"

• Tweet a lot. Let them know you're interested. @MusicCityBowl and / or the hashtag #IUFB2NASHVILLE
• Pre-order tickets! Put your money where your mouth is. Go to IUHoosiers.com where you can put in requests for tickets based on the four bowls that are in play for Indiana. If they are flooded with requests for tickets to the Music City Bowl, that would seem awfully hard to ignore.
• Get the word out. Share this post across all your social media platforms. It seems silly, sure, but this is how #IUFB4GAMEDAY got started and within a day their official twitter account used the hashtag.
  

Let's get weird.