Indiana Hoosiers most to blame for ugly loss to Ohio State

11/24/2024 08:58 PM

Indiana football received a harsh educational lesson on how to dominate in the Big 10 Conference moving forward. The previously unbeaten Hoosiers’ teachers Saturday were the Ohio State Buckeyes, the longtime consistent power. But after falling in ugly fashion 38-15 in Columbus, does this write off IU as a College Football Playoff contender even if they beat rival Purdue?

Indiana’s loss to OSU certainly halts its Big 10 title game pursuit. The Buckeyes will have to lose to a struggling Michigan team next Saturday for IU to get in. But there’s another scenario: Indiana also needs Penn State to lose to Maryland to clinch the second title game spot.

Then there’s the belief IU won’t be one of the 12 playoff representatives after the Buckeyes loss. Head coach Curt Cignetti, however, issued a blunt response postgame.

“Is that a serious question?” Cignetti responded defiantly after the loss. “I’m not even going to answer that one. The answer’s so obvious.”

While Cignetti is clearly confident in the Hoosiers, there’s still plenty of factors that cast blame for Indiana’s porous showing at Ohio Stadium. Who should take blame? Time to dive into it.

Curt Cignetti clearly gave Ohio State bulletin board material

This was hands down Cignetti’s worse coaching performance in what’s been a season of brilliant decisions by the first-year IU leader.

However, one decision he made looked like it costed him Saturday. And it wasn’t even what he did during the game, but way before.

Cignetti tried to persuade interest into the new era of IU football with these famous words inside Assembly Hall: “Purdue sucks, but so does Michigan and Ohio State.”

Then came four more words that grabbed national attention. When asked how he quickly turned IU football around, he simply said “I win. Google me.”

Ohio State didn’t take long to troll Cignetti by twisting his Google reference with its jumbotron display. Even OSU interior defensive lineman Tyleik Williams trolled the IU coach following the win on social media. Star Buckeyes quarterback Will Howard was another mocking Cignetti. Except his troll job came during the game.

Will Howard with a message for Indiana after the game pic.twitter.com/LAzIptzMKO

— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) November 23, 2024

Cignetti clearly was confident in his team, as every coach will be. However, it’s obvious Ohio State remembered how the IU coach flamed the Buckeyes inside IU’s basketball arena, then had his Google quote written down to be edited for later.

Indiana got roughed up in the trenches

Swinging back over to the game, Ohio State thrashed Indiana along both lines.

The Buckeyes swarmed quarterback Kurtis Rourke for five sacks. There were moments pass rushers even came through freely. Indiana had come into the game with pass protection woes — especially after surrendering four sacks to Michigan two weeks ago. IU couldn’t get much of a ground game going either, as OSU bottled them to 85 yards and only 2.1 yards per carry.

Indiana’s defensive front struggled too. Ohio State gashed the nation’s top run defense with 115 yards and averaging four yards a carry. Howard wasn’t even sacked once.

Worse for IU, the Hoosiers collected just three tackles for a loss compared to the Buckeyes’ eight. OSU simply thrashed the IU trenches and won the strength-versus-strength battle.

Big play Indiana offense goes missing 

IU entered Columbus with the Big 10’s best scoring offense in tow. And an offense known for breaking off 40+ yard plays.

The Hoosiers’ longest play from scrimmage was a 21-yard Ty Son Lawton run. The wide receiving room didn’t fare much better. Elijah Sarratt delivered the biggest reception, but only for 19 yards.

Ohio State just handed the blueprint on how to really bottle up this offense. Michigan did its part to contain IU’s offense, but still allowed two passing completions between 36 and 41. The Buckeyes raised the offensive containment another level.

Indiana’s Cignetti admits loud venue affected them

Here’s the final teaching lesson Cignetti and IU received: Handling hostile environments.

“We didn’t handle the noise very well,” Cignetti admitted after the loss.

Cignetti didn’t cast full blame on the noise, saying how a big part of their loss was how Ohio State played.

But for the Hoosiers to take the next step and become an annual top 10 program, they’ll have to improve handling noise moving forward. Clearly, Indiana was unprepared for the high decibel levels in Columbus. While it’s never easy to really simulate crowd noise, Indiana will be playing in more louder environments in the future if they become a consistent winner.

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