With a 14-0 record, Curt Cignetti and Indiana are the Big Ten Champions, winners of the Rose Bowl 38-3 over Alabama, and 3.5-point favorites over the Oregon Ducks in the Peach Bowl Friday night.
Discipline, execution and maturity are the three qualities that make the Hoosiers a great football team. They're well-coached. They rarely make mistakes and in their second year at the top of college football, never beat themselves.
"They don't do dumb stuff," Chris Fallica of Fox Sports said on social media. He notes that in addition to being the top seed in the College Football Playoff, the Cignetti's veteran team leads in several important categories:
2nd fewest Penalty YPG
Lead in TO margin - just 8 TO all season
3rd down defense - 3rd 28%
Lead in 3rd down conversions - 56%
To match them, a team has to be not only talented but play a nearly perfect game. The Hoosiers execute with precision in all three phases, and they are assassins in the fourth quarter.
Their average age on offense is 22.3 years old.
Offense
- Mendoza Year 4
- Hemby Year 5
- Black Year 6
- Nowakowski Year 6
- Sarratt Year 4
- Becker Year 2
- Cooper Year 4
- Evans Year 4
- Smith Year 4
- Lynch Year 4
- Michalski Year 5
- Coogan Year 5
- Benson Year 6
Defense:
- Kamara Year 5
- Daley Year 4
- Tucker Year 4
- Landino Year 2
- Hardy Year 2
- Fisher Year 4
- Jones Year 4
- Ferrell Year 3
- Sharpe Year 4
- Ponds Year 3
- Moore Year 6
The transformation Cignetti has accomplished at a traditional football doormat is remarkable, and coaching is a big reason why. Add to that, IU has one of the most mature rosters in college football, dotted with fourth, fifth and six-year players.
Sometimes an edge in experience trumps blue-chip talent
In this way they mirror a pattern used successfully by the Washington college football semi-finalists in 2023 and the great BYU teams of the 1980s, mature players who don't make mistakes. The '23 Husky roster was boosted by the Covid bubble and core of fifth- and sixth-year seniors. The old Cougar teams relied on 22- to 24-year-olds in the trenches, returning to football after religious missions.
Combine the age advantage with good coaching and evaluation, you have a team that plays like a disciplined squad of pros, which is what college football players are now.
Oregon has more talent in terms of star ratings, but the Ducks are much younger. Dante Moore is 20. Freshmen like Dakorien Moore, Jordon Davison, Brandon Finney and Dierre Hill play prominent roles.
To win in Atlanta, the Ducks will have to match Indiana's discipline and precision. Will Stein and Tosh Lupoi will have to provide them with a sound plan and some brilliant playcalling to equalize IU's edge in experience.