BLOOMINGTON — As No. 19 Indiana football racked up score after score against No. 9 Illinois on Saturday, the Hoosiers broke the Fighting Illini’s will.
Everyone at Merchants Bank Field at Memorial Stadium could sense it. The sellout crowd roared all night, at times as loud as the 65-year-old stadium has ever been. And once things went from bad to worse for Bret Bielema’s team, there was no turning back. Indiana continually steamrolled Illinois until the game ended in a 63-10 win.
IU finally put together a dominant performance against a ranked team. This is who the Hoosiers have been for most of the last full year, but not against top opponents. Indiana fans at Memorial Stadium — and many more who weren’t in attendance — basked in their team’s performance all night.
But for all the significance this night carried — and there’s plenty — you wouldn’t be able to sense it from Curt Cignetti’s demeanor. He paced the sideline in the fourth quarter displaying the same amounts of tension, frustration, and discontent as he did in the first quarter. After Grant Wilson slid on the game’s final play and Cignetti walked to midfield to shake hands with Bielema, he bore the same facial expression he’d wear if the Hoosiers squeaked out a close win, or if they lost.
For Cignetti, this is simply business as usual.
“It’s a mentality. I mean, our guys — we’re tied in together. We don’t talk a lot. We’re pretty much — we hit the field, it’s all business. I know I stirred things up last year media-wise because I felt I had to,” Cignetti said after the game. “We kind of go about our business. Kind of a blue-collar outfit. And I think there was a point in that game where we broke their will.”
The numbers behind Indiana’s dominance are staggering.
The Hoosiers (4-0, 1-0 Big Ten) out-gained a ranked opponent 579-161. The Fighting Illini (3-1, 0-1) didn’t enter this game with a dominant rushing attack, by any means, but they mustered only two yards on the ground Saturday. IU finished with more tackles for loss (10) than Illinois had first downs (nine). Indiana ran 27 more plays than UI, and racked up nearly 40 minutes of time of possession.
Cignetti’s team wasn’t piling on points because of turnovers and short fields. IU forced just one takeaway — Illinois’ first turnover of the season — and it came in the fourth quarter, when Amare Ferrell intercepted UI’s backup quarterback. There was nothing fluky about what Indiana did on Saturday. This was ruthless efficiency, physical domination, and a team proving it belongs.
“We heard a lot of things over the week. A lot of people would just say they were a lot more physical than us, they were gonna come in, run the ball, kind of dominate us physically. So that puts an edge on a team that already has a lot of players with edge on their shoulders,” linebacker Aiden Fisher said. “I think we know we’re an elite football team.”
Indiana has been a constant firestorm topic around the country since Cignetti became head coach. The Hoosiers made their run to the College Football Playoff last year with an 11-1 record, but wilted in their only game against a ranked opponent, at eventual national champions Ohio State. A large swath of national and non-Big Ten regional media hammered IU’s inclusion in the 12-team bracket, for many months after confetti fell on the Buckeyes.
Cignetti sometimes fanned the flames — or, more directly, lit the match — by making brash statements and keeping himself and his program in the headlines. But the Hoosiers are more than the bold persona their head coach projects, and Saturday’s dominance helped them show it to the rest of college football.
“We’re hard workers. We here because we love the game of football,” receiver Omar Cooper Jr. said. “They can’t hate us just because of Cignetti and the things that he say. But just know that we want to win, and we gon’ do whatever it takes to win.”
Indiana passed its first big test of 2025 in convincing fashion.
This team will face several others in the final 2/3rds of the regular season, with road games at Iowa, Oregon, and Penn State still to come. There’s too much football yet to play to truly know what IU’s demolition of Illinois means in the big picture. If the Hoosiers don’t back up this performance with more big wins, they won’t find out what it means.
But after one of the biggest wins in program history, IU has earned the right to feel good about itself. The team hasn’t played totally flawless football, but there aren’t clear weaknesses on the roster. Quarterback Fernando Mendoza launched himself squarely into the Heisman Trophy conversation with a strong game Saturday, IU’s offensive line has graded out as the best overall unit in the Big Ten, and the offensive weapons look as dangerous as expected. The defensive front is feasting, and the secondary is keeping opponents in check.
The Hoosiers finally showed all that against a ranked opponent. If this team makes a second straight College Football Playoff appearance, circle this game as the date it gave the country a taste of its capabilities.
“People always gon’ doubt, no matter if we won like that or if we won by one point. We just proved that we can win some big games, and that’s the message this year. We want to win the big games,” receiver Elijah Sarratt said. “As long as we keep on doing what we do, the sky’s the limit.”
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