If you’re an outside observer, Indiana’s history as a football program is Pretty Bad.
The Hoosiers have lost more games than anyone else at the FBS level, haven’t won a bowl game in decades, haven’t beaten Ohio State since the 80’s (a day called the darkest in Ohio State’s history), and haven’t looked like a good program.
And we’re not fully going into the attendance discourse here but that’s absolutely also a factor at play with outside perception.
That is what the program looks like to any media looking in who haven’t watched the teams slip up like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football in almost every big game, make backbreaking fourth quarter mistakes or just plain lose quietly.