Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza (15) celebrates a win against Penn State following an NCAA college football game, Saturday, Nov. 8, 2025, in State College, Pa. (AP Photo/Barry Reeger)
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On Oct. 15, 1988, Indiana’s football team defeated Ohio State 41-7, the second consecutive year the Hoosiers had won against their Big Ten Conference opponent. It was IU’s largest margin of victory in a rivalry that dates to 1901. Since then, the Hoosiers haven’t beaten the Buckeyes again, a stretch of 30 games.
On Saturday night, Indiana looks to break that streak when it faces Ohio State in the Big Ten championship game in Indianapolis. Ohio State (12-0) is first and Indiana (12-0) is second in the College Football Playoff rankings, so both programs are locks to make the CFP for the second consecutive season. They will almost certainly be among the four teams that receive first round playoff byes, too, considering they are the nation’s only undefeated teams and the teams ranked fifth through eighth have finished their regular seasons.
As such, both programs are certainly eager to remain healthy and prepare for the CFP, although Saturday’s game serves as another validation for an improving Indiana program that was once among college football’s laughingstocks.
This is the first time Indiana has qualified for the Big Ten championship game, which began in 2011. It is also the first time the Hoosiers have won a share of the league’s regular season title since 1967. In fact, IU won more than half of its Big Ten games just twice in the 30 years before Curt Cignetti took over as coach last year.
When IU hired Cignetti, he immediately exuded confidence. At a December 2023 press conference announcing his first IU recruiting class, Cignetti was asked about how he sells players on his vision.
“Yeah, it’s pretty simple,” Cignetti said. “I win. Google me.”
Indeed, Cignetti led Indiana University of Pennsylvania to three NCAA Division II playoff appearances in his first head coaching job in the early 2010s, helped Elon University to the 2017 and 2018 Football Championship Subdivision playoffs and coached James Madison to three consecutive FCS postseason appearances from 2019 through 2021. He then led James Madison to 8-3 and 11-1 records in 2022 and 2023, its first two seasons in the Football Bowl Subdivision, the highest level of college football.
Still, Cignetti faced plenty of doubts when he accepted the Indiana job. After all, the Hoosiers had gone 3-9 overall and 1-8 in the Big Ten in 2023, and the league was adding perennial powers Oregon and USC in 2024. But in Cignetti’s first season, IU won its first 10 games and rose to No. 5 in the CFP rankings before losing 38-15 at Ohio State. The Hoosiers did make the CFP, but they lost 27-17 to Notre Dame in the first round, a game in which they trailed by 24 points with less than two minutes remaining.
IU entered this year 20th in the Associated Press preseason poll, just the second time since 1969 that the program was ranked in the preseason. But with quarterback Kurtis Rourke and several other starters graduating, the Hoosiers were picked to finish sixth in the preseason media poll. Instead, IU went undefeated in the Big Ten for the first time since entering the league in 1953.
The Hoosiers have won their games by an average of 33.4 points per game, including a 29.8-point margin of victory in their nine conference games. Indiana is second in the FBS with 44.3 points scored and 10.9 points allowed per game. And IU has the Heisman Trophy frontrunner in quarterback Fernando Mendoza.
Mendoza, a senior transfer from Cal, has completed 72% of his passes for 2,758 yards, 32 touchdowns and five interceptions and has run for 243 yards and six touchdowns. He is second in FBS with a 183.7 pass rating and third with 9.4 yards per pass attempt.
On Saturday, Mendoza will face his toughest test against an Ohio State defense that leads the nation with just 7.8 points allowed per game. The Buckeyes have allowed only nine touchdowns (five passing and four rushing) all season and have held 10 of their 12 opponents to 10 points or fewer. Meanwhile, Indiana has scored at least 20 points in each game, including nine games with at least 30 points.
Saturday’s game will be the 52nd time the nation’s top two teams have faced each other since the AP poll began in 1936. And it will be just the third No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup in Big Ten history, joining Iowa-Michigan in October 1985 and Ohio State-Michigan in November 2006.
Although Indiana and Ohio State have the same undefeated record and have been similarly dominant, the Buckeyes remain the favorite because of their bevy of NFL talent and history. The Buckeyes are the reigning national champions and have lost two or fewer games in each season since 2012. They also easily defeated IU a year ago. Still, the Hoosiers have proven to be an elite Big Ten program since Cignetti arrived and are no doubt eager to show how far they have come Saturday night.