This is it.
One way or another, Monday is the last time this Indiana football team will suit up and play a game.
The simple fact of the matter is that teams like this don’t come around often in sports, literally never in the case of this program. These Hoosiers have shattered every single notion of what Indiana is supposed to be as a football-playing institution, building off of the foundation left by that 2024 team.
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When Curt Cignetti arrived as Indiana’s head coach in December 2023, he immediately set out to raise the standard in Bloomington.
“We’re going to change the culture, the mindset, the expectation level, and improve the brand of Indiana Hoosier football,” Cignetti said at his introductory press conference. “There will be no self-imposed limitations on what we can accomplish.”
Every coach says something like this at an introductory press conference. Indiana fans have heard several men’s basketball coaches say as much for decades. The difference is Cignetti both truly meant it and knew he could do it.
When the 2025 season kicked off as Cignetti’s second leading the program, it had been…
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80 years since Indiana’s last outright Big Ten championship
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80 years since Indiana’s last undefeated regular season
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58 years since Indiana’s last Big Ten championship
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37 years since Indiana’s last win over Ohio State
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34 years since Indiana’s last bowl win
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9 years since Indiana’s last winning streak over Purdue, retaining the Old Oaken Bucket
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6 years since Indiana’s last road win over Purdue
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1 year since Indiana last won double-digit games
That’s not even counting the things this team did that the program never had. Among them being winning the Big Ten’s championship game, the Rose Bowl, the Peach Bowl, the Heisman Trophy, every game in the regular season (1945 had a tie) and several other things.
Above all else, these Hoosiers suited up every single gameday and just found a way to win. Sometimes that meant a triumphant blowout. Other times it meant key plays in the closing minutes of the fourth quarter. One way or another, they won.
They won because Aiden Fisher called out plays for the defense, Mikail Kamara opened up opportunities for other linemen, Tyrique Tucker won his assigments, Rolijah Hardy and Isaiah Jones got to the quarterback, D’Angelo Ponds played lockdown defense, Louis Moore and Amare Ferrell closed off the secondary and Devan Boykin excelled in whatever role the defense needed him to on a given day.
Because Fernando Mendoza delivered an accurate pass, Roman Hemby and Kaelon Black ran through several defenders, Elijah Sarratt and Omar Cooper won off the line of scrimmage, Charlie Becker bulldozed defenders or hauled in a contested catch, Riley Nowakowski did a bit of everything and the offensive line led by Pat Coogan made the room for all of it to happen.
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There’s several more names that made this happen, but there’s only so much room here.
These Hoosiers brought Indiana’s fanbase together in a way no other team has in decades. Families gathered in living rooms, friends met at bars and several others purchased tickets to watch this team play. The community it’s built and memories it’s provided are special, the kind of thing we value about sports when reminiscing on these times in the future.
This team will live in those memories forever. Tomorrow, it has a shot at a kind of immortality afforded to few before it.
Fans have one last opportunity to get ready to watch it, be it on a television or in the stadium. Again, these moments don’t come around very often.
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Make sure to take a moment, today or tomorrow, and appreciate it all.
