Why Indiana Is Ready to Win the National Championship

The Indiana Hoosiers have sped run the greatest rebuild of all time, and now they are the No. 1 seed in this year’s college football playoff and one of the favorites to win the national championship.

By now, everyone has recognized that this team is legit, but how has Indiana, which was one of the worst programs in the nation just a few years ago, become one of the most dominant teams in the nation? Let’s dive in and find out.

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Prolific Offense

Heading into the playoffs, Indiana is 13-0 with big wins against Oregon and Ohio State under its belt. Going 13-0 in the Big Ten is extremely impressive on its own. However, a look under the hood reveals that this team is truly performing at an extraordinary level on both sides of the ball.

Few teams in the nation are elite on offense and defense. Unsurprisingly, Ohio State fits this description, and so does Indiana. A stat that is crucial for measuring a team’s effectiveness on each play is EPA/play, with EPA standing for expected points added. The Hoosiers enter the playoffs ranking top five in EPA/play on both offense and defense. The only other team to do that this season is Ohio State.

Indiana’s offense is absolutely lethal, ranking 2nd in EPA/play on both passing and rushing plays. Its success in the passing game can largely be attributed to its quarterback, Fernando Mendoza, who just won the Heisman award. Mendoza was excellent this season, leading the nation in passing touchdowns, and he displayed excellent accuracy, a willingness to push the ball down the field, and an impressive ability to limit turnovers and avoid sacks. He’s been a fantastic pocket passer this year.

Mendoza’s excellence allowed him to rank top five among Power Four quarterbacks in key stats like PFF grade, QBR, and EPA/touch, which all attempt to measure the totality of a quarterback’s performance.

On top of having an amazing passing attack, Indiana has a very effective run game. This season, the Hoosiers averaged 40 carries for 221.3 rushing yards and 2.2 rushing touchdowns per game. Below, you can see that they were one of the top rushing teams by important metrics like EPA/rush and success rate.

What’s interesting about Indiana’s rushing attack is how many running backs they utilized this season. Roman Hembry and Kaelon Black both had 140+ carries, and they were very efficient, averaging over 5 yards per carry. Khobie Martin also added 70 carries of his own for 452 yards on a monstrous 6.5 yards per carry. It would be disrespectful for me to not recognize the team’s offensive line, which was dominant all season long and finished the year ranked 3rd in PFF run blocking grade behind Iowa and UConn.

The Indiana rushing attack wasn’t a one-man wrecking crew. It was a team effort.

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Dominant Defense

While Indiana’s offense was a dynamic and efficient machine, its defense was just as good.

In totality, Indiana gave up just 10.8 points and 257.2 yards per game this season, ranking in the top ten in both metrics. Their advanced numbers were amazing, too, as they ranked in the top five in EPA/play and success rate on this side of the ball.

The Hoosiers’ pass defense was a no-fly zone. They had a bend but don’t break philosophy in coverage, giving up completions and yards at a higher rate than you might expect from an elite pass defense, but they led the league in passing touchdowns allowed per game, and they forced an interception on 4.7% of their opponents' pass attempts (10th in the nation).

Indiana also wreaked havoc in the backfield, racking up 251 total pressures and 41 total sacks. It had four players with 6+ sacks, and the team recorded a sack on 8.59% of its opponents’ passing plays, the 15th-best mark in the nation. Since Indiana is so good at breaking up passes and putting pressure on the opposing quarterback, it’s easy to see why its defense ranked 2nd in EPA/dropback.

Indiana has to have some kind of weakness. I mean, no team is perfect. Perhaps its run defense lags behind?

Nope! The Hoosiers’ run defense is elite as well. In fact, it was basically useless to try and run against them this year because they allowed just 77.6 rushing yards 4.3 rushing first downs and 0.4 rushing touchdowns per game, along with a phenomenal 2.9 yards per carry. All four marks rank in the top 10 nationally. On top of having impressive box score numbers, Indiana’s run defense also ranks in the top five in both EPA/rush and success rate.

On top of being really effective in defending the pass and the run, Indiana’s defense also does a great job of limiting penalties. This season, the team’s defense committed just four penalties for 34.7 penalty yards per game, both marks ranking in the top six nationally.

Overall, Indiana’s defense is pretty much flawless. It's easy to see how the Hoosiers have become one of the hardest teams to score on in College Football.

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Top-Tier Coaching

The last thing I want to highlight that gives me a lot of confidence in Indiana is its coaching. Head coach Curt Cignetti got to Indiana in time for the 2024 season, and at the time, the team was in desperate need of a turnaround. Up to this point, the program had never won double-digit games in a single season and was arguably the worst program of any power four/five team in the entire country.

Then Cignetti worked his magic and changed everything. In his first season as the head coach, Indiana went 11-2 and made it to the college football playoff. A loss to Notre Dame in the first round ended the Hoosiers’ hopes of winning a championship, but it was clear that the program was not the same old Indiana.

Then came this season. And boy did things go differently than anyone expected.

Indiana started the season ranked 20th in the AP poll, but the Hoosiers wouldn’t stay that low for long. They went 13-0, racking up wins against Oregon and Ohio State on their way to capturing the Big Ten championship and the No. 1 seed in the college football playoff.

Before Cignetti, Indiana had never seen 10 wins in a single season. Now, the program has racked up back-to-back 10-win seasons. What makes this really impressive is that Cignetti has done this without a plethora of highly ranked recruits, as you see at Ohio State and Alabama.

This season, Indiana ranked just 73rd in 247 Sports’ composite team talent rankings, which use recruiting rankings to measure how much talent each team has. To be this successful without having a top-tier roster is absolutely ridiculous. Curt Cignetti is already in the conversation to be the best coach in the nation, and this gives Indiana a huge advantage over the rest of the playoff field.

Don’t wait until it’s too long to jump on the bandwagon. Indiana is legit and the team has what it takes to win it all this year.