The Indiana Hoosiers have stormed through the season with purpose. They wrapped up the regular season as the number two team in the nation, undefeated and unshaken, and now stand one win away from proving they belong at the very top. Their final hurdle before the CFP is a familiar one, the only other undefeated team left, the No. 1 Ohio State Buckeyes. On Saturday, only one unbeaten team will survive. Indiana believes that if they empty the tank this week, they will be the ones left standing.
It has taken something special to reach this stage and redshirt senior running back Kaelon Black feels it every day. Speaking during Tuesday’s media availability, Black pointed to the unity that has fueled Indiana’s rise.
“It’s just our camaraderie as a team,” Black said Tuesday. “Everyone is on the same page; everyone has the same goal and that’s just to win each week. Honestly, it’s to win each and every single day. I feel like Coach [Cignetti] does a great job with us to make sure we’re just focused.”
Black has been tied to Curt Cignetti since 2020. He started at JMU, then followed the coach to Indiana when Cignetti was hired in late 2023. He has stuck with him through every step of the climb and has always trusted his vision, now more than ever.
This week brings its own layers of urgency. The winner will almost certainly lock up the top seed in the upcoming playoff, but the opponent itself adds a little extra fuel. Ohio State has long been a mountain Indiana has wanted to scale and now the chance for payback sits directly in front of them.
“There’s a lot of motivation but we’re not going to get too ahead of ourselves,” Black said. “We’re just going to play Indiana’s brand of football, the new Indiana, and just making sure we are taking it day by day [and] staying focused.”
Last season, the stage might have been a little too bright for the Hoosiers. Black was part of Cignetti’s group that walked into Columbus in 2024, believing they could make a statement, only to leave with a painful 15-38 loss. Indiana opened strong with momentum in the first quarter, but the game unraveled in the second and never swung back their way. The trip home, Black recalled, was one of the toughest he had experienced.
“It was horrible,” Black said of that long ride back. “Just the thought we had lost our first game and it honestly just hurt a lot, but we had to make sure that we had to bounce back and just play our brand of football at the end of the day.”
Last season’s bounce back did not last long. Indiana responded with a dominant 66-0 win over Purdue the following week, but the momentum faded in their first ever College Football Playoff appearance where Notre Dame delivered a heartbreaking knockout. Those two losses have never left this team’s memory.
That history has shaped who they are today. It fuels their preparation this week and will continue driving them into the College Football Playoffs. Black and the rest of the Hoosiers are determined to avoid the sting of heartbreak again, and they plan to do everything in their power to take down the number one team in the country.