INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana football — yes, that Indiana football — has won a Big Ten championship.
The Hoosiers, longtime afterthoughts in a conference headlined by some of the sport’s mightiest powerhouses, have finally scaled the Big Ten mountaintop. They did so by conquering the proverbial final boss, Ohio State, in a historic battle between No. 1 and No. 2 for the conference title. IU outlasted the Buckeyes, 13-10 on Saturday at Lucas Oil Stadium.
This was IU football’s third Big Ten championship, putting the 2025 team alongside the 1945 and 1967 squad in program immortality. Indiana won its first outright title since 1945. And — as if all of that isn’t enough — the Hoosiers earned their first win over the Buckeyes in 37 years.
Indiana (13-0) essentially secures the No. 1 overall seed in the College Football Playoff with this win, along with a trip to the Rose Bowl. The College Football Playoff bracket will be announced in full Sunday afternoon.
Curt Cignetti took over as IU head coach in December 2023, and he’s led the program on a meteoric rise ever since. Indiana had won nine total games in the three seasons before Cignetti arrived in Bloomington from James Madison. The Hoosiers had won 23 games in the five years before Cignetti’s hire. They’ve now won 24 games under Cignetti in 2024 and 2025.
This matchup also pitted two of the top candidates for the Heisman Trophy against each other, in Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza and Ohio State quarterback Julian Sayin. Mendoza delivered in clutch moments throughout the second half, making a strong final statement to Heisman voters to bring the award back to Bloomington for the first time ever.
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