It used to be when you thought of scary places in Indiana, your mind went right to Gary. Not the Gary of “Music Man” fame; the Gary that hangs like an infected hemorrhoid from the inflamed rectum of Chicago, the place that produced really scary guys like Joe Jackson and “Mongo.”

But the epicenter of Hoosier scary has shifted a few hours south.  Indiana head coach Bill Lynch has unveiled “The Pistol” – IU’s new offense designed to generate excitement; a buzz intended to put a few more asses in the seats of the newly-revamped Memorial Stadium. Indiana is now so much about “the guns” that the stadium now features the largest weight room in the country.

So, you have you the new “stacked and packed” Hoosiers, with their new crib fitting their new “gangsta-boy-don’t-we-sound-fuckin’-dangerous” image. All you see on those prison shows late at night on MSNBC is Gary-type guys doing 25 the hard way for shooting up a liquor store; and they spend that time pumping iron developing those “I-could-snap-your-neck” arms complete with those scary “pencil-lead-and-razor-blade” tattoos. Couple that with the fact that like a typical Big Eleven Ten team, IU scheduled a supposed “patsy” in Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) team Eastern Kentucky; the expectation would be a 30-point prison rape in favor of the BCS conference team.

Except that EKU has the longest streak of winning seasons in all of D-I football, and Indiana may very well be the worst team in a BCS conference. The result: Indiana 19, Eastern Kentucky 13.

This begs the question: What sort of pistol can’t blow away what should be a far weaker opponent. It certainly isn’t Dirty Harry’s .44 magnum, nor would it be the dual six-guns of Yosemite Sam. Given the history of IU football, it has to be more like a Derringer with a jammed firing pin.

It has to be the kind that looks like a really low-talent single back formation that shitty IU teams have failed with for decades. It has to be the kind that uses as many as four lousy tailbacks toiling in committee behind an overhauled-yet-again offensive line.

What “The Pistol” is supposed to be is an offense designed to get the ball to the running back faster by using two-back sets in the shotgun formation. It is also supposed to offer the quarterback more options to run or throw off play-action. Designed by Hall of Fame coach Chris Ault,  it is an offense that requires a couple of playmakers; the sort IU hasn’t seen since the days of Antwaan Randle-El and Anthony Thompson.  The way Bill Lynch showed this offense Thursday night, with a lot of formations using a fullback and halfback in a off-set I formation, it really looked more like General Neyland’s cro-magnon Single Wing.

In what has to be a harbinger of things to come, the Hoosiers fumbled on their first drive. Granted IU won this game, but things still look pretty bleak in Bloomington. While the Big Ten Network was panning around the new Memorial Stadium, they showed a miniature field made for the kids to play on. Over half the kids in Bloomington were wearing gear from the in-state rival Purdue.

I guess it’s still scarier in Gary after all.