CRAWFORD | Indiana-Oregon II: The psychology of a rematch. Who has the edge?

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Beating a great team once is hard. Beating a great team twice? That's a trick reserved for magicians, card sharks or the kind of football teams that wind up making history.

Speculation on how he has achieved his success notwithstanding, Indiana coach Curt Cignetti isn't in the magic business. He's in the business of precision, preparation, and poker-faced pragmatism.

So, when he spoke to reporters Saturday, just hours removed from corralling recruits and hosting transfer portal targets, he didn't pretend when talking about Friday's 7:30 p.m Peach Bowl rematch with conference rival Oregon.

"We were fortunate to win the game out in Eugene," Cignetti said. "It's hard to beat a great team twice. Very difficult."

Louisville | Kentucky | Indiana | Eric Crawford

College football doesn't serve up sequels very often. But the Peach Bowl comes with a familiar script: Indiana vs. Oregon, Part II. The Hoosiers won the first act. They won it convincingly enough to raise eyebrows across the country: 30-20 in Eugene, the kind of win that turns skeptics into subscribers.

Now comes the tougher part. Doing it again. With a national championship trip on the line.

Oregon coach Dan Lanning didn't need much prompting to explain the challenge.

"You try to find all these moments that, OK, this was the difference. It's every play," Lanning said. "When you're playing a team with great technique that has great scheme like Indiana, that's the edge."

He should know. Lanning has faced this movie before. In 2023, he lost to Washington in the regular season, then lost again in the Pac-12 title game. In 2024, Ohio State got him once, and again in the playoff. He's coached in circles so long he may have permanent turf toe.

This time, though, he's not just chasing a game. He's chasing a ghost.

Because Indiana doesn't beat you with flash. It beats you with process, that sacred Saban-adjacent word both coaches kept invoking, almost like a mantra.

Both Cignetti and Lanning are Nick Saban disciples, graduates of what Lanning called a "doctorate in football." They believe in detail. They believe in tape. They believe in culture over chaos, even in the midst of bowl prep and full-on recruiting madness.

And yet, as much as these teams share schematics and philosophies, they are not mirror images.

Oregon is more explosive. Indiana is more deliberate.

Oregon's quarterback, Dante Moore, has matured since their last meeting. Indiana's, Fernando Mendoza, has simply maintained. Poise, control, efficiency. He's the guy who just won the Heisman and still showed up like a senior manager ready to run a Monday morning meeting.

"It's the ability to extend plays," Cignetti said of Mendoza. "To me, that's the winning edge."

So what changes in a rematch?

The players are better. The tape is longer. The disguises, especially from Bryant Haines' defense, which Lanning called "the best zone-break defense I've seen this year," may be more subtle, coming off back-to-back shutdown performances against Ohio State and Alabama.

But the emotions?

Maybe those are where the edge lies.

Indiana has confidence. Oregon has a scar.

One team is trying to stay the course. The other is trying to rewrite it. And there's something terrifying, and motivating, about having already been caught.

So when Lanning was asked what he's learned from all the other rematches he's lost, he didn't blink.

"More than anything, double down on our process."

Strange thing about playoff football. Everyone wants to reinvent the wheel. But the best teams — the ones still standing in January — aren't searching for a new trick. They're just hoping the old ones still work.