I must say, the upcoming weekend in Bloomington is shaping up pretty nicely.

The football team, which moved to 3-0 with an impressive 41-24 win over Akron, will be in town to open Big Ten play against everyone’s favorite school, Illinois.

For those of you keeping score at home, our friends in South Bend are 0-3. Just throwing that out there in case you’ve been under a rock since the beginning of this month.

Along with the football game, Coach Sampson and staff will host Tyler Zeller for his official visit.

Zeller was at North Carolina this past weekend visiting with coach Roy Williams and staff. Notre Dame and Purdue will get visits down the road in October.

So overall, it should be an interesting and exciting weekend. Can IU beat Illinois and open the season 4-0? Will Tyler Zeller see a future for himself in Bloomington? We’ll find out soon enough.

Thanks to the Big Ten Network, I can’t watch IU football (an issue that will be resolved, as God is my witness, before basketball season arrives), but I can tell you what you already know.

After week two, the Hoosiers are 2-0. The Michigan Wolverines, and the Notre Dame Fighting Touchdown Jesuses, are 0-2. There is sincere, genuine, unabashed happiness at this news, because it combines the best of both worlds: the defeat (however indirect) of our enemies, and our own success. Does it get any better?

In all seriousness, though, this little batch of success might add up to something. I know, I know: I say this every year. I said it in 2005, when I covered IU, and when a trip to a bowl game meant an expenses-paid trip for me to, like, Detroit. In college, that sounded spectacular.

But there is reason for optimism, because the Hoosiers aren’t barely squeaking by the teams they used to struggle with; they’re winning big and easy, the way decent D-1 teams should during the dawn of the season. There is a passing attack and a spread offense and a decent D and … some semblance of a confident, solid football team. At the very least, we don’t have to wait until Midnight Madness to get excited about 2007.