Ohio State players and coaches want their fans to pump up the volume Saturday as unbeaten Indiana’s high-scoring offense invades the Horseshoe.
Rarely, and quite possibly never, have head football coaches talked about playing against Indiana University the way Ryan Day began his Tuesday press conference. He typically goes straight to questions, but this time he opted for an opening statement.
“One thing that is great about being at Ohio State is you get a chance to be around the best fans in the land,” Day began, “and I know that this week is going to be a huge opportunity for us to show a nation what the best damn fans in the land look like.”
On Wednesday afternoon, the Ohio State football X account posted a video with several hyped-up players encouraging fans to be loud Saturday when the Indiana offense is on the field in the Buckeyes’ third top-five matchup this season. The accompanying text: MAKE IT THE LOUDEST STADIUM IN COLLEGE FOOTBALL SATURDAY.
Veteran columnist Jeff Gilbert writes Ohio State football and OHSAA sports for Press Pros Magazine.com.
On his Thursday radio show, Day reiterated how important the crowd is. He wants everyone off their hands to force Hoosiers quarterback Curtis Rourke out of the clap cadence and into the silent count.
“If they’re still in the clap, we’re not loud enough,” Day said.
Day further emphasized first down. He wants the crowd to help his defense put the Hoosiers in more second-and-longs than they are accustomed to. To get Rourke and company off schedule, Day’s schedule is this: Loud on every down, not just third down.
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But it’s Indiana. The basketball school. A win you check off before the season.
Not in 2024.
Maybe the most stunning change in college football isn’t the 12-team playoff, NIL windfalls or the afterthought of conference geography. Maybe it’s the Indiana Hoosiers being 10-0 and ranked No. 5.
Close your eyes and try to picture Indiana’s stadium. Can you? What’s its name?
The Indiana football program – in only its 37th winning season in 138 years of record keeping – doesn’t care if you know anything about their stadium – yet. The head coach proclaims they are not in this simply to enjoy the outlier season.
News broke Saturday morning that Indiana’s big bosses extended first-year head coach Curt Cignetti’s six-year contract to eight years. The Hoosiers didn’t play Saturday, so Fox interviewed him on the Big Noon Kickoff show.
“Honestly, they came to me – they were very proactive,” Cignetti said. “Some people say, ‘Well, why would you do that when this one may open, that one may open, you’re going to be a hot commodity, blah, blah, blah.’ And the fact of the matter is, we’re the emerging superpower in college football. Why would I leave?”
Superpower remains to be seen. But if Cignetti has a superpower, it’s this: Turning losers into immediate and consistent winners. Perhaps not always as dramatically as he’s done at Indiana (3-9 last year), but he has an impressive resume, nonetheless.
Cignetti served as a career assistant from 1983 through multiple stops (including Alabama) until 2011. He got his shot to be head coach at Division II Indiana of Pennsylvania in a foreshadowing move if there ever was one.
Indiana coach Curt Cignetti is the first in school’s history to win his first ten games.
Cignetti took IUP from losing seasons to 7-3 his first season. The next fall he guided IUP to 12-2, a league title and into the Division II regional finals. In six seasons, Cignetti’s teams compiled a 53-17 record, won two league titles and reached the playoffs three times.
Cignetti’s next stop was Elon, an FCS program in North Carolina that had suffered through six straight losing seasons. After losing his debut in 2017 to Toledo, Cignetti won eight straight and made the playoffs. His team ended James Madison’s 22-game Colonial Athletic Association win streak and 19-game home win streak.
JMU was so impressed it hired Cignetti in 2019. The Dukes made a seven-win improvement that season, finished 14-2 and lost in the FCS title game. They reached the semifinals in 2020. After a 12-2 season in 2021, JMU moved up to FBS and joined the Sun Belt Conference. Last year the Dukes were 11-1 and lost to Air Force in the Armed Forces Bowl.
Indiana needed a new coach after firing Tom Allen, another in the long of Indiana coaches to leave with a losing record (33-49). Cignetti is the 30th coach in school history.
Indiana history suggests – practically screams – that Cignetti’s success will be short-lived. The last coach to leave the job with a winning record was Bo McMillin in 1947 with a mark of 63-48-11. In 1945, McMillin coached Indiana to a tie for its highest final ranking at No. 4. The Hoosiers finished 9-0-1, and McMillin won national coach of the year.
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Only two others – Allen in 2020 and John Pont in 1967 after a Rose Bowl loss – have earned national coach of the year honors for Indiana. Cignetti is a frontrunner for this year’s coach of the year awards.
Cignetti’s program-building resume gives him confidence at age 63 that the Hoosiers will be a factor in the Big Ten as long as he’s in Bloomington. The fans have high hopes, too. And they certainly believe this team – win or lose Saturday – will be in the playoffs.
Cignetti’s won by hitting the transfer portal jackpot, including 13 under-sized and under-recruited players he brought with him from JMU. He found Rourke, the quarterback, at Ohio University, and he plucked other important contributors from places like Old Dominion and Kent State.
“I don’t think their players get enough credit,” Day said. “The coaches have done a great job, but the players are the ones who play, and they have good players. They’ve done a nice job of upgrading their roster in certain areas.”
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Cignetti’s staying power at IU will depend on recruiting more high-level athletes. His team won’t be able to sneak up on anybody after this season. But for now – which is all that matters in the showdown at No. 2 Ohio State with a trip to the Big Ten title game at stake – the Hoosiers are difficult to beat.
“They play very hard, they are well-coached, they take care of the football, they cause turnovers,” Day said, “they play well on special teams, and their best players play on special teams.”
Rourke is No. 2 in the nation in passing efficiency, one spot ahead of Ohio State’s Will Howard. The Hoosiers are the second-highest scoring team in the nation at 43.9. And the defense is allowing only 13.8.
You can easily question Indiana’s schedule of no ranked opponents to this point (many have), but those numbers mean something. Because Indiana has played the kinds of teams this year that they’ve played for decades and never won at this rate or by such lopsided scores. And no doubt Cignetti’s game plan will be like every other team that’s faced Ohio State’s highly regarded defense: Start with a game plan that hasn’t been seen.
To combat that strategy, Ohio State’s defensive plan since the Oregon loss has been to simplify and play faster. It’s worked the past four games with more quarterback pressure and fewer touchdowns.
“You take all these things that can happen and just keep trying to wean it down to something that’s manageable for the players,” defensive coordinator Jim Knowles said. “I don’t want the players in my head thinking what I’m thinking.”
The Buckeyes have offensive problems to overcome with the loss of center Seth McLaughlin to a season-ending injury. For the third time in recent weeks, the line will have a new look. Otherwise, Indiana must try to stop a far better offense than it has seen.
Confidence abounds on both sides of the ball for the Buckeyes. Still, they want all the help they can get from the 100,000-plus that will be in the Horseshoe at noon.
“I’m confident that Buckeye Nation is going to show up,” Howard said. “If I can say anything, we need y’all … we need Buckeye Nation to be loud.”
Because Indiana – the football team – is coming to town.
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