Friday Night's College Football Playoff Game is a Moment IU has Been Building to Since Fall Camp

Written by Sammy Jacobs (@Hoosier_Huddle)

The Indiana Hoosiers have been the fairy tale team all season as they earned their way to their first playoff berth in school history and first 11-win season in school history. It is kind of all unbelievable. The kind of stuff you only see in movies. For the players and coaches at IU, there was belief that they could go as far as they wanted to back in fall camp.

“I would just say fall camp was kind of the turning point. Everybody had that belief no matter what. It was a matter of fact of putting the pieces together and building the camaraderie we needed.” Indiana linebacker Aiden FIsher said. “Yeah, spring ball a lot of faces weren’t here. We went through the spring portal and some guys got back from injury. Once we got back in fall camp everybody was rolling together and I think we all had the sense that this could be a special team.”

Fisher was one of the players to follow Curt Cignetti from James Madison and has performed at an All-American level in 2024. He led the Hoosiers in tackles with 108.

Hoosiers quarterback Kurtis Rourke pointed to fall camp as well as the point where the picture started to become clearer.

“I would say kind of the first, second week of fall camp, honestly.” Rourke said.

Cignetti and his staff overhauled IU’s roster prior to spring practice. A roster that went 9-27 over the last three seasons under Tom Allen. Cignetti brought in highly productive players from the Group of Five level and a few from Power Four teams like Texas Tech and Wake Forest. He valued production over potential.

Anytime there is that much turnover it will take some time to click on all cylinders.

“Things, the process of things were starting to get better. Little stuff that we were messing up in the beginning we were finally getting our timing down on routes, timing down on blocking and run game and everyone just started to gel, and it really took off from there.” Wide receiver Elijah Sarratt said.

Curt Cignetti was not shy about his thoughts on this team and some players followed his lead in speaking success into existance. One of the most outspoken players has been defensive lineman Mikail Kamara.

“I think it was kind of like, the way we started like interacting with each other in the locker room, I think our team chemistry like got to a point where everyone was able to talk to everyone about different things.” Kamara said.

“I think noticing that from the beginning of the year to where it's the middle of the season, I started seeing things like that. And most importantly, was seeing the way we were all able to lock in during practice, lock in during games and be very communicative with each other. Especially seeing that from the JMU perspective my freshman year and seeing different levels of chemistry, different levels of team camaraderie, seeing the way that we started to come together in the middle of the season, I think that was the biggest turning point.” Kamara added.

The belief kept growing as fall camp went on. Running back Justice Ellison believed in his teammates enough to lock the doors of the meeting room and ask the deep questions.

“So we had a team meeting and we let everybody know, hey, I believe in you, you believe in me, and we can do it together. We don't need the media and everyone else to believe is us, but we believe in each other. That moment right there, me and a few other guys, we led the meeting and we locked the doors. We had a heart to heart and we went around the room, explained to each other what do we want to get out of this season? Why are we here? Why come to Indiana? So we had that in the back of our mind every time se step on that field.” Ellison explained.

Why are the Hoosiers here? Why come to Indiana? Those questions used to be knocks on the program. Now the answers are clear.

The Hoosiers are playing in the College Football Playoff because they are a really good football team that went 11-1.

The reason to come to Indiana now is to have a chance to compete not only for the Big Ten title, but also the national title.

It may be a shock to some that this team will take the field in South Bend in a first round playoff game, but for the players taking the field this moment has been building since July.