NEW ALBANY, Ind. (WDRB) \u2014 Don and Ruth Smith arrived more than an hour early Wednesday but were still 10th in line as they joined other Indiana University football fans at IU Southeast.<\/p>\n
The Smiths were among the many who waited for hours to get an up-close look at something everyone once thought was impossible.<\/p>\n
IUS marked one of the final stops on the IU Football National Championship Trophy Tour.<\/p>\n
Louisville<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Kentucky<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Indiana<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Eric Crawford<\/a><\/p>\n Fans had the chance to take photos with trophies from IU\u2019s historic season, including the College Football Playoff National Championship, the Heisman Trophy and the Big Ten Championship.<\/p>\n “Being an IU fan, we had to wait a long time for any kind of championship \u2014 and especially a national championship,” Don Smith said.<\/p>\n The colors of cream and crimson stretched through hallways, doorways and even the line outside, which only seemed to grow throughout the event.<\/p>\n Fans of all ages attended, from children who didn\u2019t have to endure years of heartbreak to longtime supporters who never dared to dream this big.<\/p>\n But every fan seemed to share the same reaction when seeing the trophies in person \u2014\u00a0a mix of excitement, pride and astonishment.<\/p>\n It’s something many had never experienced before or thought possible, especially for a program that once had the most losses in Division I history.<\/p>\n “It\u2019s very exciting,” Don Smith said. “The trophies are a lot bigger than they look on TV. It\u2019s a once-in-a-lifetime thing.”<\/p>\n The Trophy Tour includes stops at each regional campus, with IU Columbus set to host the final stop next week.<\/p>\n Throughout the line at IUS, chants of “HOO HOO HOO HOOSIERS” echoed, showing the pride of a fanbase that will celebrate this championship as long as they possibly can.<\/p>\n Copyright 2026 WDRB Media. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n Top Sports Stories on WDRB.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW ALBANY, Ind. (WDRB) \u2014 Don and Ruth Smith arrived more than an hour early Wednesday but were…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":867380,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[117659,63462,117663,28972,93689,7,117661,117655,117662,117660,117656,117664,117658,117657,28974,28976,28978,28975,28977,28979,28970,28973,28969],"class_list":{"0":"post-867379","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-big-ten-championship-iu","9":"tag-college-football-playoff-national-championship","10":"tag-college-football-trophy-tour-indiana","11":"tag-eric-crawford","12":"tag-fernando-mendoza-heisman-trophy","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-indiana-hoosiers-championship-celebration","15":"tag-indiana-university-football","16":"tag-iu-columbus-trophy-tour","17":"tag-iu-football-fans","18":"tag-iu-football-national-championship","19":"tag-iu-historic-season","20":"tag-iu-southeast-event","21":"tag-iu-trophy-tour","22":"tag-local-college-sports","23":"tag-local-high-school-sports","24":"tag-local-pro-sports","25":"tag-louisville-college-sports","26":"tag-louisville-high-school-sports","27":"tag-louisville-pro-sports","28":"tag-louisville-sports","29":"tag-tom-lane","30":"tag-wdrb-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=867379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/867380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=867379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=867379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=867379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}