BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Even after throttling a then-top 10 Illinois in Week 4, the narrative hasn’t fully gone away for Indiana.
All last season the Hoosiers had to fight back against a notion that they didn’t play tough competition on their way to a College Football Playoff berth. Indiana was the surprise story of the 2024 season, ripping off 10 consecutive wins to start the Curt Cignetti tenure at a place known as a basketball-first school.
That 10-0 start included wins over Michigan, Washington and Nebraska, but the critics painted Indiana as a paper tiger. That criticism only amplified when Ohio State beat Indiana, 38-15, and every flaw came under the microscope during playoff campaigning season.
Add in a 27-17 loss to Notre Dame in the CFP opener and it was easy to hand-wave Indiana away as a pretender. Few expected Indiana to be back in the playoff hunt again this season, an easy regression candidate for those who didn’t believe in the Hoosiers’ magical run a season ago.
And, yet, No. 7 Indiana is very much in the hunt for a playoff spot midway through the season. The Hoosiers (5-0) have a chance to prove the criticism is outdated if they can get a challenging road win over No. 3 Oregon this weekend (3:30 p.m. ET on CBS, CBSSports.com, CBS Sports App, Paramount+ Premium).
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Inside the Indiana program, there is a strong belief that the Hoosiers can compete with college football’s elite teams. When reviewing last year’s two losses, Indiana coaches were more encouraged than discouraged about where their program stood.
“I still feel like I left both of those games thinking, ‘Man, we weren’t that far off,'” defensive coordinator Bryant Haines told CBS Sports this offseason. “I felt like the margin of error was just so small. I think we can compete with those teams and I thought we did compete well in moments. I think if anything, it validated us. We can beat Ohio State. I still think we can.”
The Notre Dame playoff loss was the tougher pill to swallow. Indiana gave up a 98-yard touchdown run to Jeremiyah Love early in the first quarter that immediately put it behind the eight-ball at Notre Dame. The offense that dominated the competition all season was stymied by Al Golden’s defense. By the fourth quarter, it was 27-3 and the result was clear. Indiana made the final score a bit more respectable with two late touchdowns, but it crystallized to some that Indiana didn’t belong.
That loss, of course, looked better as time went on as the Fighting Irish made it all the way to the national championship game with wins over Georgia and Penn State. Still, there was no getting around Indiana went 0-2 against the two best teams it played in 2024. There were lessons in those defeats, though.
“Notre Dame I was really disappointed with the way we played but we learned what we needed, sort of personnel wise, to take the next step,” Cignetti told CBS Sports this offseason. “I think the positive thing about Notre Dame was a bitter taste left in everybody’s mouths headed into this year. You didn’t have those warm fuzzy feelings like you had a great year.”
Part of what Indiana needed was actually in that game on the opposing sideline. Offensive lineman Pat Coogan, who has been the key cog to Indiana’s O-line this season, started for Notre Dame in that game. In Indiana’s hard-fought 20-15 win over Iowa two weeks ago, Coogan had the best pass-blocking grade out of any Power Four center, according to Pro Football Focus.
It’s not just Coogan who has elevated Indiana to another level this season. It’s California transfer quarterback Fernando Mendoza, who is an early Heisman Trophy candidate and has the Big Ten’s best quarterback rating with 1,208 passing yards, 16 touchdowns and one interception. It’s Maryland transfer running back Roman Hemby, who leads the team with 351 rushing yards. It’s Ole Miss safety transfer Louis Moore who has a team-best 30 tackles so far. On both sides of the ball, Indiana made smart transfer additions to an already talented returning roster.
Indiana didn’t just step up financially to improve its roster. The program fended off rival suitors for Haines and made him one of the nation’s highest-paid assistant coaches. Cignetti engenders real loyalty from a staff that has followed him up the ranks, some all the way back to IUP, but it still takes real financial resources to keep that group intact.
Under Cignetti, Indiana is all-in on football not only because the results are there on and off the field (ticket sales are up more than 50% year-over-year) but because it no longer feels farfetched that Indiana could compete for a national championship.
“We believe in (his blueprint), he believes in it and we continue to work on it every day,” Indiana AD Scott Dolson told CBS Sports. “That’s how we feel we’ll have consistent success.”
Saturday’s road showdown against Oregon won’t make or break this season for Indiana. The remainder of the schedule feels very manageable again, with the toughest tests likely coming against 4-1 Maryland and a 3-2 Penn State team that just lost to UCLA. A loss Saturday and Indiana could be in the same boat as it was a year ago with a 11-1 record and criticism that it just beat up on lesser teams on the way to the playoffs.
This team is more talented and better prepared than it was a year ago. It has a difficult road win over Iowa under its belt. The defense ranks top-10 nationally in scoring defense (No. 3), total defense (No. 5) and pass defense (No. 7). All of that will be put to the test against the Dante Moore-led Oregon offense that is averaging 46.6 points and 503.8 yards per game. The Ducks have the most talented roster Indiana has faced this season, one that Cignetti himself told CBS Sports earlier this year was in rarefied air of roster costs. The top end of the college football ecosystem were $40 million rosters, according to the coach.
When you play the game’s top teams like Oregon, it is a “game of inches,” Haines says, “and we have to win those inches.”
Indiana will soon find out if its lessons from its losses a year ago will lead to the breakthrough its coaches believe possible, or instead have to suffer through the same narrative that hung over their success last season.
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