For years, Homefield was waiting for the perfect moment to unveil its white whale.
The Indianapolis-based apparel company, which specializes in college sports merchandise, works to create items with the most unique storytelling for every university in its portfolio. But one school stands out above the rest.
Homefield’s success has long been tied to Indiana University.
The company’s CEO, Connor Hitchcock, is an IU graduate, class of 2016 and even worked as an adjunct professor in Bloomington. He has been making Indiana apparel since 2014, when he founded Hoosier Proud.
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When Hitchcock and his wife, Christa, launched Homefield in 2018, securing a licensing deal for Indiana was one of the first items on the docket.
And since then, the most requested item in company history is, without a doubt, Lee Corso’s iconic Indiana sweater. The company calls it “The Sweater Project.”
“Before Homefield was even Homefield, the idea of faithfully recreating Lee Corso’s famous Indiana sweater has been top of mind,” Homefield said in a post on its site.
Corso, 89, who has now served as an analyst on ESPN’s "College GameDay" since the show’s inception in 1987, coached Indiana for 10 seasons, from 1973-1982.
For a football team notoriously tagged with the most losses in college football history, Corso is one of the few bright spots in the team’s long-suffering lore, leading the Hoosiers to their first bowl victory in the 1979 Holiday Bowl.
“He's proud to be associated with Indiana football,” Hitchcock said, “which many aren't.”
Until this season.
Indiana is currently ranked fifth in the College Football Playoffs Rankings and sits 10-0 heading into Saturday's showdown with No. 2 Ohio State in Columbus. New coach Curt Cignetti has led the Hoosiers to their first 10-win season in history and just re-signed an eight-year extension worth $72 million.
And no day was bigger for IU this season than Oct. 26, when College GameDay made its first appearance in Bloomington on a college football Saturday.
“It was like an entirely different campus than what I went to and what I've seen my whole life going to IU football games,” Hitchcock said. “It was like I was living in a fever dream.”
Saying this season’s success is shocking would be considered a massive understatement.
Preseason odds for the Hoosiers to win the Big Ten were +29,000. They were picked 17th of 18 teams in the Big Ten Preseason Media Poll.
But the Homefield team believed in the Hoosiers much more than the media and much more than the public.
Before the season, Homefield highlighted Oct. 26 as a day to send the marketing team to Indiana.
“We were looking at that Washington game,” said Josh Johns, Homefield’s director of marketing. “We just really believed that Indiana would be going for, maybe not be undefeated, but would be going for an unprecedented season this year.”
And a game against the reigning CFP runner-ups could produce the scene to attract national attention.
That Saturday, a number of events coalesced to brew the perfect catalyst for Homefield history.
As soon as Corso exited the "College GameDay" bus, Johns knew it was time.
Thousands packed the IU campus for college football’s signature showcase, a throng much larger than the sellout crowd of 53,082. An aerial shot revealed a city flooded with crimson and cream, IU’s official colors.
Corso, returning to the school that adores him, sported his quintessential sweater, mingling with IU fans young and old. Plus, the school honored the 45th anniversary of the 1979 season, when Corso led the Hoosiers to that first bowl victory.
Perhaps, most importantly, Bloomington mayor Kerry Thomson declared Oct. 26 “Lee Corso Day” in Bloomington.
“The moment’s arrived,” Johns said.
The remainder of Saturday and Sunday was a blur, filled with a flurry of calls, texts and emails. As the chaotic pageantry consumed Bloomington, plans began to crystalize for The Sweater Project.
Since the concept had existed for years, several prototypes were already manufactured.
Homefield officially approved plans to move forward on the morning of Monday, Oct. 28. By Wednesday at 10 am ET, pre-sale orders were available.
The decision to do a pre-order sale, Hitchcock said, was the company simply didn’t know how many sales there would be. They knew fans had long desired the item, but the magnitude of just how many was difficult to estimate.
And for good reason. By Friday, at 10 am ET, when the pre-order window closed, it marked the largest pre-order sale for a single item in company history.
In a year when Indiana merchandise sales are up more than 400% at Homefield from last season, the Corso sweater is the apex.
And for a company that believes in storytelling for each item above all else, Corso parading his sweater in front of a national audience celebrating his achievements was the perfect impetus.
“This project and its success is years in the making," Johns said. “Only when the moment was right for all parties, Indiana, Homefield and the fans, did we launch it and make it available.”
Homefield is also not putting a deadline on when fans will receive their sweaters. It will be sometime this winter, but there is no definitive date.
“You only get one shot at this. ... This is not business as usual. This is not products as usual,” Johns said. “When you have something that's special, you treat it special.
“Not a single one of these will leave the warehouse if it is not the single-finest offering we have ever done for Indiana.”
Matt Liberman is an reporter and video producer for cllct.