Cignetti Believes the Hoosiers are a Championship Caliber Team

Written By: Nick Gonzales (@nrgonzales_)

The 2024 college football season has been a crazy one to say the least, but one of the most astounding teams this season are the Indiana Hoosiers. With the regular season coming to a close, the Hoosiers have two games remaining on their schedule. After facing a challenging opponent in the defending National Champions, Indiana was met with a much-needed bye week to address their offensive struggles. Now, the 10-0 Hoosiers are preparing to face a championship caliber team this Saturday in Columbus.

Indiana is traveling to The Shoe this weekend to face off against The Ohio State, a team the Hoosiers haven’t beaten in 36 years. There are a lot of questions surrounding the Hoosiers right now, like what team are they going to be when facing a championship caliber team like Ohio State or an SEC team. After a second half that fans would love to forget, the Indiana Hoosiers managed to obtain a victory against the Michigan Wolverines and had a week off to assess what type of team they wanted to be.

“I give Michigan credit; they’ve got a lot of good players on defense. They bowed up. We didn’t make the plays we normally make when we had the opportunity to make them, and there were too many pressures on the quarterback… Fortunately, our defense and special teams saved the day.

But if you’re going to win a championship, championship teams find a way to win those kinds of games. That’s the one thing about this team. This is a team. Everybody thinks alike. Everybody is focused on the same thing. We've been fairly consistent from beginning to end. It's not always perfect. There's always improvements. But we certainly had some issues in the second half against Michigan.” Curt Cignetti stated during his press conference on Monday.

Cignetti has a right to be dissatisfied with how the offense played in that second half. As a team that was averaging 46.6 points per game and 476.2 yards per game leading up to Michigan, it is astounding that Indiana only managed to record 3 points and 18 yards in the second half. However, it’s been said before and will continue to be said, “Offense sells tickets, but defense wins championships,” and that’s exactly how the Hoosiers think.

“I think we have a confident team that believes and takes care of business. They prep well. They're detailed. They played fairly consistently to a standard, not circumstances of the game, and that's what we preach,” Curt Cignetti responded on if the team has adopted some of the head coach’s personality.

Even with the lack of offense, Indiana’s defense held strong, and it resulted in a win. Other teams would’ve found a way to lose that game. The old Indiana Hoosiers would’ve found a way to lose that game, but Cignetti has taken this program and has created something entirely new. The whole team beams confidence and treats every game the same.

With a road game to face the number two ranked team in the country, the team was blessed with some extra time to rest and prepare. With offensive lineman Drew Evans being hurt and Myles Price getting knocked out of the game against Michigan, the bye week couldn’t have come at a better time.

“Yeah. We'll be at full strength for the game. In terms of the bye week, I think across college football, everybody is hurting a little bit at this point. Even when you're playing every play in the game, you've got something. I think the bye week came at a really good time to kind of get refreshed and recharged.” Cignetti said on the importance of the bye week to get healthy during his Monday press conference.

Indiana will definitely need to be as refreshed as they can get since this weekend’s game will have many implications. This team isn’t satisfied with being the second or third or fourth best, they want to be the best. The Hoosiers are preparing for a chance to go 11-0 for the first time ever and have a shot at making the Big Ten Championship and having a higher playoff seed. Football fans country-wide are waiting in anticipation for this matchup between these top five teams. If you aren’t traveling to Columbus this Saturday, make sure to tune into the game on Fox at 12pm EST along with Big Noon Kickoff and College GameDay.