Indiana’s football run has made Kyle Schwarber ‘super fan out’ and helps him appreciate passion of Phillies fans

Kyle Schwarber will be in the stands Friday night, allowing his feelings to be controlled by the college football players in front of him the same way he often dictates people’s nights with one swing during the summer. He’ll be a fan, riding the emotional roller coaster with Indiana’s football team in Atlanta as the Hoosiers try to reach the national championship game with a victory over Oregon.

“You’re living and dying with it and you’re like, ‘Man, this is what Phillies fans do for 162 games? That’s impressive,’” said Schwarber, the Phillies slugger who hit 56 home runs last season. “It brings back the super fan in you. It brings back that aspect. You’re in it and now you get to go super fan out on someone else.”

Schwarber, 32, grew up near Cincinnati as an Ohio State fanatic but traded the Buckeyes for the Hoosiers after playing baseball for three seasons at Indiana. The school’s baseball team transformed during that time from an afterthought to a national power. The football team — which until November had the worst winning percentage in college football history — is now doing the same. And it’s allowing Schwarber to know what it feels like to be a fan in South Philly.

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“We have people who show up and care,” Schwarber said. “How many times have we gone to a weekend series and it wasn’t sold out for any of those games? A Monday night or Tuesday night or a Wednesday afternoon, we have 40,000-plus. That’s awesome. Now you get to see that for these kids in college. This is so awesome and it’s such an awesome experience for me to be able to fan out.”

Schwarber will be IU’s honorary captain for Friday’s Peach Bowl against Oregon. He narrated the team’s hype video before its Big Ten championship win over Ohio State and sat next to Lee Corso in 2024 when College GameDay came to Indiana. It might be harder to find a bigger IU football fan than the Phillies slugger, who was elected to the school’s Hall of Fame last year.

A linebacker in high school, Schwarber had football tickets as a freshman, but the Hoosiers won just one game. The football program did little while Schwarber was there — “There wasn’t much winning going on,” he said — and it was hard to imagine the sport ever catching on at a basketball school.

“It was like the tailgate fields were filled and then everyone vanished when it was game time,” Schwarber said.

Now he’s wearing Indiana gear on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday — “You have to wear it the day before game day, on game day, the day after they win,” Schwarber said — and texting his old buddies about the football team. Schwarber said people call him a bandwagon fan. Nope, he said. This is his school. Schwarber drove to Notre Dame last winter to tailgate at IU’s playoff game with his old baseball teammates and is flying to Friday’s Peach Bowl.

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“It’s so much fun now,” Schwarber said. “Now that they’re good, it takes away that Ohio State in you. You were there. You went to school there. It just revamps you — that’s my team, that’s my school. It brings back the super fan in you.”

The turnaround started in November 2023 with the arrival of head coach Curt Cignetti, who was the quarterbacks coach at Temple under Jerry Berndt from 1989-92 and coached Indiana University of Pennsylvania from 2011-16. The Hoosiers reached the College Football Playoff last season, and became the nation’s No. 1 team in December a week before their quarterback, Fernando Mendoza, won the Heisman Trophy. The doormats rapidly became a powerhouse.

“I need a documentary,” Schwarber said. “I need to meet Cig and see how in the heck does this guy come in from having one of the worst winning percentages in college football history to taking it in two years to a College Football Playoff team and then being No. 1 in the country the next year and being a win away from the national championship. It’s surreal.

“It’s so awesome to watch. It gives you goose bumps when you can sit back and realize that, ‘Man, Indiana is getting some really cool recognition.’ I wish I could go back all the time. It’s such a beautiful campus. It feels like the perfect college town with nothing around it. Just cornfields around it and it’s beautiful. To have a place like that get recognition because our football team is doing amazing things.”

Schwarber started hitting earlier this month as he prepares for the first year of his newly signed five-year, $150 million contract. He could have gone elsewhere in free agency but said he often thought about the atmosphere at Citizens Bank Park on a Tuesday in May or a Friday in October. He knows now how it feels to sit in the stands.

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“I’m not the outrageous, screaming, yelling guy,” Schwarber said. “That was the younger me watching the Bengals, screaming at the TV. Now being professional and understanding, you just understand a little more and not screaming, ‘How the hell did that dude not catch the ball?’ No, the guy is trying to catch the ball. He just didn’t. But I’ll be the first one to let you know that Indiana scored or Indiana stopped them on a fourth down or didn’t jump on a fake punt on fourth down. I’ll be the first one to let you know.

“I’m going to be screaming and yelling and losing my mind Friday and then come home the next day and my wife will be like, ‘What the hell happened?’ That’s what this is about. It’s the escape and it brings you back to being the fan.”