The “rat poison” that Curt Cignetti and Indiana football have ignored all season has been particularly venomous this week.
The fifth-ranked Hoosiers (10-0, 7-0 Big Ten) travel to Columbus on Saturday to take on No. 2 Ohio State (9-1, 6-1), in one of the biggest regular-season games of the year across all of college football. It’s one of the most important regular-season games in IU football history.
Cignetti is keeping his usual perspective on the matchup, while certainly understanding how difficult a challenge his team faces.
“Excited about this week’s opportunity against Ohio State. Obviously an excellent football team. One of the favorites to win the National Championship. A lot of great players, extremely well-coached. Their tradition speaks for itself, so it’s a big game for us because it’s this game coming up,” IU’s head coach said on Monday. “We treat them all alike. If there was a better way to prepare for a certain team, we’d do that for every team.”
The stakes are clear, in some ways. An IU victory would all but secure berths in the Big Ten Championship Game and the College Football Playoff. It would also end Indiana’s long losing streak against Ohio State — the Hoosiers haven’t beaten the Buckeyes since 1988, with 31 consecutive losses since then.
With a win, Indiana would garner serious consideration to be the No. 1 team in the country. IU has received just five total first place votes in the AP Poll, ever — one in 1967, and four in 1945.
A strong individual performance in this game could lock in some Heisman Trophy votes for quarterback Kurtis Rourke, as well.
An Indiana loss would leave things less certain. The Hoosiers should still be in a CFP position if they play well in defeat, but that’s not guaranteed. If this game turns into an Ohio State blowout, they could be in some trouble.
But here’s the thing about all of those scenarios and everything on the line: this game is Indiana’s chance to validate everything that’s happened this season.
Plenty of national media and SEC-based voices have already started casting doubt about Indiana’s quality, and whether or not it deserves its high ranking. Per ESPN’s College Football Power Index, IU ranks No. 6 in the country in strength of record, but 106th in strength of schedule. The Hoosiers have handled business against the schedule they’ve faced, and they’ve done so convincingly in nine of their 10 games. But it’s true that some of those SEC teams and other CFP contenders, while also carrying losses, boast stronger wins than Indiana has.
But that could change on Saturday. If IU can go into The Horseshoe and knock off the Buckeyes, all of those claims about this team’s standing go away. Even if the Hoosiers fall, a good performance in a close loss would prove that they belong where they are.
It’s an opportunity unlike most others in Indiana football history.
Of course, that’s not how the Hoosiers view this game. Deep down, they may know how significant it is. They might understand how much is on the line.
But if they do realize all of that, they never show it.
“It’s a big game because it’s the next one. I think a lot of us full-heartedly believe that, knowing that we can play with anybody, and that it doesn’t matter who we’re playing against, we’ve just got to go execute, and we’ll be fine,” Rourke said on Tuesday. “And so that’s kind of our mindset going into this week, just like it was every other week.”
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