LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – Whatever happens next — in the Big Ten championship and the College Football Playoff — nobody can take away what Indiana University football accomplished Friday night.
Perfection. A 12-0 record. The school’s first unbeaten season. And they did it on the field of their biggest rival.
Purdue was merely a speed bump on Indiana’s way to destiny. And not much of a bump. Indiana didn’t just beat Purdue 56-3. It plowed them under like last season’s corn stalks. Beat them like a rented bass drum. Mechanical. Methodical. Merciless.
"Week after week, they've just been consistent, very coachable, done what we've asked them to do," Indiana coach Curt Cignetti told NBC on the field after the game. "They've stacked meetings, days, practices, showed up, prepared, put it between the white lines, and pretty darn consistent in all three phases. Got a bunch of great, high-character guys on this team, and I give the coaches a ton of credit."
Perfection looks easy. Perfection sounds boring. But in sports, there is nothing harder. Nothing more difficult than surviving every stumble, winning every week, managing every expectation.
And on this night, Indiana made it look like a walk through the soybean rows.
The games have been easy. The hard part came during the week — the practices, the meetings, the endless mental reps. The harder part came between the ears. Beating the noise. Stiff-arming human nature. But by kickoff, this team was a Swiss watch.
Curt Cignetti told NBC before the game that Indiana wanted an exclamation point.
Consider it delivered. In bold. With a marching band.
There are still skeptics. When the Hoosiers face Michigan, Oregon or Ohio State in next week’s Big Ten title game, it’ll be their first ranked opponent since Oct. 11. While the SEC and the Big Ten East have spent November in cage matches, Indiana’s biggest scare was a narrow win at Penn State.
But it shouldn’t be discounted: they won that one, too.
On Friday, even Heisman candidate Fernando Mendoza took a back seat. He threw for 117 yards and two touchdowns. His quarterback rating: 162.9. His stress level: room temperature, even if it was the coldest conditions of his college career.
He didn’t need to throw much. Indiana ran like it was trying to catch the last train out of Tippecanoe County. The Hoosiers piled up 329 rushing yards in three quarters. They averaged 8.2 yards a carry.
Roman Hemby carried 12 times for 152 yards and a touchdown. Kaelon Black added 13 carries for 166 yards and a touchdown. The Hoosiers led 28-3 at half.
The game was over before the fourth quarter started. Purdue fans didn’t leave early. They floated out like helium balloons. Indiana fans stayed. This was history. They waited, well, forever for this.
Indiana has turned college football upside down in the new economic landscape. Cignetti was the central figure in this year’s coaching carousel. But he juked Penn State and resigned with Indiana. The Hoosiers are the team that every coach with an open coaching job are aspiring to be.
You can just hear the thinking. "Indiana did it. We can too."
As if you can just buy what Cignetti has done, taking over a program that had won nine games in three years and win 24 games (and counting) in your first two.
Sure, it might’ve looked easy. It was as hard as anything you can do in sports. Cignetti was in no mood to reflect on the field Friday.
"You know, it's not about me, and we've got work to do," he told NBC. "Someday when I'm 80, sitting in my rocking chair drinking a Coors Light, I'll reflect back on it. But we got too much ahead of us right now."
Now come the hard questions. And the hard games. But here’s the easy truth:
Indiana football is 12-0.
Undefeated.
Unapologetic.
And unmistakably ready for more.
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