Indiana Hoosiers Fans – What the Fuck Just Happened?

Indiana football won the National Championship last night. It happened so fast it still doesn't quite seem real. The last two seasons of Indiana football made for an experience that quite literally no fan base has experienced before. 

I was born in Bloomington, Indiana. Both my parents graduated from IU. So I've been cheering for the Hoosiers since before I can remember. For some reason, maybe because the internet is such a judgmental place when it comes to sports fandom, I feel like there's a lot of Hoosiers fans who don't want to admit that Indiana football was an afterthought for them for most of their life. But that's what they were for me, and I know that's the case for a majority of Indiana fans who've been living and dying with every game since Curt Cignetti took over. The proof is in the pudding. 

We had nothing to cheer for, and no reason to believe that would ever change.

Obviously there are real long-time Hoosier football die hards out there. People who watched every snap of the 2011 season when the Hoosiers finished 1-11 behind quarterbacks the likes of Edward Wright-Baker, Tre Roberson, and Dusty Kiel. The year they opened the season with a loss to Ball State on a neutral site. 

But for most Hoosier fans, Indiana football was something you merely kept tabs on. You knew the best players. You watched games when convenient. And you cheer for 6 wins and a bowl game. 

Then Curt Cignetti showed up. 

He said, I win Google me. He said, Purdue sucks… but so does Michigan and Ohio State. Assembly Hall went nuts. He injected life into the program. But even still… deep down… did anybody really believe him? Maybe people thought he could get Indiana to a place where we're consistently making bowl games. Maybe he'd get them to a place where we could start making the Ohio State's and the Michigan's of the world sweat a little bit on game days. But we're still just Indiana. The losingest program in the history of college football. Indiana is still one of, if not the single hardest place to win in all of college football. Maybe in all of sports. And let's be real… if Curt Cignetti so much as makes a few bowl games in a row, he's going to get hired away by a better program. Because if a coach can consistently win 6 games at Indiana, who knows what he could do with the backing of a real football school.

But going into 2024, there was reason to believe Indiana football could be formidable. Curt Cignetti was coming off an 11-2 season with James Madison. He had the JMU Dukes ranked as high as 18th in the AP poll. And he was bringing his best players with him. On top of that, he landed the best QB in the MAC via the transfer portal in Kurtis Rourke. And after Week 3, when Indiana rolled into Pasadena and put 42-13 beat down on the UCLA Bruins, #9windiana was starting to look like a real possibility. 

For my money, it was the 2024 Nebraska game when Indiana football became real. When all of the sudden, decades of abject apathy turned into, "I love this football team like my own child."

That game unlocked something in me that had been dormant for years. Something that would only ever bubble to the surface occasionally. Like in 2020 when Michael Penix Jr. had the Hoosiers humming for a covid-shortened season.

Or at the 2015 Pinstripe Bowl, when the Hoosiers lost to Duke on a missed field goal that to this day I'm not convinced didn't sneak inside the upright.

But after that 2024 Indiana-Nebraska game… now that we had Curt Cignetti… now that the transfer portal had blown the sport wide open… that's when Indiana football became real to me. Indiana beat Nebraska the way an elite college football program would. It was domination from start to finish. If Indiana could do that to Nebraska, there was no reason to believe they couldn't hang with the best teams in the nation.

Unfortunately, college football will humble you quick. After winning the next three games, it was LOUDLY brought to our attention that the Indiana Hoosiers were actually a fraudulent football team. That the Hoosiers were schedule merchants. That boat racing the likes of Nebraska, Washington, and Michigan State made for a cute story, but nothing more. And when we played a real team like Ohio State, we'd come to learn Indiana football wasn't what we thought they were.

And boy where they right… for a while. Last season, Indiana didn't look like they belonged on the same field as the Buckeyes. Curt Cignetti was being accused of coaching scared. The Hoosiers finished the regular season 11-1 with 0 ranked wins. Nobody in the world saw Indiana as a serious threat in the playoffs. Nobody wanted to see them in the playoffs at all. Lucky for Indiana, the entire SEC shit down their leg in the final weeks of the season, and the Hoosiers comfortably grabbed the 10 seed. But as everyone said they would, Notre Dame took care of the Hoosiers with ease. Indiana was so uninspiring in their two "real games", that they went from a fun underdog story to public enemy #1. People DESPISED Indiana. 

Paul Finebaum wanted to nuke the campus. Brandon Walker demanded financial compensation. Indiana had ROBBED them of the competitive playoff game they had been promised. Only in college football do people feel entitled to a playoff that will yield the most entertaining product. 

Sorry, sorry, that's not what this blog is about. The 2024 season ended with a whimper for Indiana. Hoosier fans had been thoroughly humbled. But Curt Cignetti had done enough to make the fan base care about football. Even if Indiana "proved" to not be among the very elite FBS programs, they could be competitive. We could finally look forward to having a fun football team. Maybe we could even win a playoff game someday.

I'd use the term "cautiously optimistic" to describe how I felt about Indiana football headed into this season. Cautiously optimistic, and nervous. To be nervous about Indiana football was a weird feeling. Expecting your team to win every Saturday took some getting used to. I'll be honest, I almost didn't like it at times. College football has long been my favorite sport to watch, and I was so used to enjoying it with no real stakes. There were times this season I thought to myself, "Damn… Saturday's were a lot easier when I could relax on the couch, and not have my entire mood riding on the results of a single game".

But every Saturday, when Indiana won, it was the fucking best. Yet still… to start the season, the National Championship wasn't even on my radar. Never in my wildest dreams did I think Indiana was capable of pulling off what they did last night. Going into this season, what I wanted more than anything was for the Hoosiers to take the next step and just prove they could hang with the best teams in the nation. 

Even after steamrolling #9 Illinois 63-10 in Week 4, I wasn't convinced. 

Maybe the doubters were right, and Illinois was just overrated. In hindsight, they kinda were. In double-hindsight, Indiana should have been WAY more worried about what was waiting for them the next weekend in Iowa City.

Illinois and Iowa were great wins. But the real test was going to be Oregon. At that point, I honestly thought if Indiana could beat Oregon, I'd be satisfied for the season. Anything that happened after beating Oregon would be gravy. If we beat Oregon in Eugene, nobody could say Indiana isn't among the best. That's all I really wanted. To be in the conversation. 

Except that's now how being a fan works. Not at all. You don't just beat Oregon in Autzen Stadium and suddenly become satisfied. Once Indiana passed the Oregon test, it would have been an objective failure to not AT LEAST make the B1G Championship. And it was smooth sailing to get there… with one teensy tiny little exception in Happy Valley…

Indiana finished the regular season undefeated. It was onto Ohio State. Who at that point was considered nearly unbeatable. The best team in college football by a long shot. I bought my tickets, and made the trip to Indy for the game with my dad and brother. Where once again… for whatever stupid reason… probably to protect myself from getting hurt… I did the mental gymnastics to convince myself, "If we can hang with these guys for 4 quarters, I'll be satisfied. Just prove we can play with these guys, and we'll see what happens in the playoffs."

Then Louis Moore got an interception on Indiana's first defensive possession and that thought went out window. 

The second it became apparent Indiana could hang with Ohio State, it became apparent that I was going to be gutted if they didn't win. Which they did. Shoutout Elijah Sarratt. Not just for his clutch go ahead touchdown in the 3rd quarter. 

But for injuring his hamstring vs Maryland. If Sarratt never misses time due to injury, Indiana may never fully discover what they had in Charlie Becker. And without Charlie Becker, I'm not sure Indiana is celebrating a National Championship today.

Despite beating #1 ranked Ohio State, there was still that hurdle of beating a big bad SEC team. Despite me writing numerous blogs where I constantly beat the drum about how the SEC isn't as good as people think, it's hard to shake a lifetime's worth of history. It's hard to shake growing up in the Nick Saban era. It wasn't until the Rose Bowl kicked off (another game I got to see in person) and Indiana started getting everything they wanted, that I remembered, "Oh yeah. Indiana is just a way better football team than Alabama. I guess we knew that already"

Unfortunately, I ran out of money at that point, so I would not attend anymore playoff games. But we all know how the story goes from there. Indiana went on to beat Oregon… again. They said it would be hard to beat a good team twice. It wasn't. 

And last night, after having my heart in my god damn throat for 4 quarters of football for the first time all playoff, Indiana finished the job. What an amazing team effort that was. When the offense struggled, the defense and special teams picked them up. Whenever Fernando Mendoza had his back against the wall, he made the big play.

I could go on about Indiana's season forever. I haven't even talked about Fernando Mendoza winning the first Heisman Trophy in Indiana history.

Or the mid-season Curt Cignetti to Penn State drama that culminated in a press conference where Coach Cig signed yet another contract extension and vowed to be a Hoosier for life. 

Or Cignetti convincing billionaire Mark Cuban to donate to NIL for the first time.

I haven't even touched on Indiana being so incredibly dominant that people started accusing them of cheating. Or the night before the game where all of Bloomington was camped outside overnight just to get a seat at the bar for game day. 

Indiana's football team had been a punchline my entire life. When fans would cheer for them, they'd almost do it sarcastically.

When they'd beat a ranked team, it was an upset worthy of a field storm. When they would lose a conference game to Rutgers, you'd barely blink. I was certain that the closest Indiana would ever come to a National Championship was when Michael Penix Jr. lead the Washington Huskies to 34-13 loss to Michigan in 2023. Indiana being horrendous at football was simply a constant in my life. The sky is blue. The sun rises in the east. Indiana will never have a competitive football program. 

Two years ago today, that was all true. But Curt Cignetti took Indiana football from a joke, to a cute story, back to a joke, back to a cute story, to a legitimate contender, to a National Champion. The 2025 Indiana Hoosiers went 16-0. They will forever be known as one of the greatest college football teams of all-time. They'll go down as the greatest story in college football history. Perhaps the greatest story in the history of sports. At minimum, Curt Cignetti would give Herb Brooks a run for his money. 

Go crazy, Bloomington.