With a triumph over the Miami Hurricanes in Monday’s CFP championship game, the Indiana Hoosiers would be the first collegiate football team to sculpt a 16–0 season since Yale in 1894.
We’ve seen some incredible, virtually instantaneous, turnarounds by sports teams in every circuit. My list would include Leicester City, the 2016 English Premier League champions. Plus the 1999 St. Louis Rams, the 1969 New York Mets, the 1981 San Francisco 49ers, and the 2008 Boston Celtics.
Indiana can join that hallelujah congregation with a win this evening in South Florida. But for now, here are a few fun facts that spotlight the magnitude of what we’ve witnessed.
1. Indiana football winning percentage and point differential from 1900 through 2023, all games:
– .419 win percentage.
– negative 3,975 point differential.
2. Indiana football’s winning percentage and point differential in Big Ten play from 1953 through 2023. (Indiana joined the conference in 1953):
– .291 win percentage.
– negative 5,353 point differential.
3. And since coach Curt Cignetti was hired to lead a lost-cause project of doing something about the rancid college-football landfill in Bloomington:
– Overall record 26-2, .929 win percentage. And the Hoosiers have outscored opponents by 807 points.
– Big Ten record: 17-1, .944 win percentage, and a plus 476 point differential.
Well, I guess it wasn’t a lost cause. But it sure seemed that way when Cignetti came in to take the hopeless case of Indiana football and sneer at the impossibly long odds. I would say Cignetti defied expectations … except there were no expectations at all – unless we’re counting on more losing seasons for the Hoosiers.
If Indiana gets by Miami to hoist the championship hardware, Indiana would become the first Division-1 college team, football or basketball, to go undefeated in a season since 1976 – when Bob Knight's 32-0 Hoosiers won the national basketball championship. And 50 years later, here comes Cignetti. Just remarkable.
The expectation is for an Indiana win … and maybe even a romp. Since I like to see what the investors are up to …
The Hoosiers were favored by 7.5 points, a rush of early money on the Hoosiers jacked that to minus 8.5. The quants jumped on Miami and that fat -8.5 spread with enough vigor to reduce it back down to minus 7.5.
As VSIN’s Josh Applebaum explained:
“Essentially, we are looking at a sharp line freeze in favor of the Hurricanes, as the line is right back to where it opened despite the public hammering Indiana,” Applebaum wrote. “Miami offers heightened ‘bet against the public’ value as the Hurricanes are only receiving 32% of spread bets at DraftKings in a massively popular and heavily bet nationally televised primetime playoff game on ESPN.
“Miami has betting system value as a ‘dog who can score’ system match (averaging 30.6 PPG), thereby increasing the chances they can keep pace or backdoor cover.
“Miami also enjoys de-facto home field advantage, as the game will be played in their backyard.
“National Championship game dogs in which the line either stays the same or moves in their favor, which matches Miami tonight, have gone 4-1 against the spread since 2015.
“The Hurricanes enjoy a one-day rest advantage, having last played on January 8th while Indiana last played on January 9th.”
(Thanks to VSIN for helping a brother – and a subscriber – by supplying the good information on the trends as we near the 6:30 p.m. kickoff, STL time, on ESPN.)
I like Indiana to win this scrabble, but there are legit reasons to believe that Miami can cover the 7 and ½. I don’t know how many investors went the other way after seeing the revision to +7.5.
On the other hand, I am enjoying the constant moving of the goalposts by anti-Indiana contrarians.
+ Indiana wins an upset victory over Ohio State?
Well, the Buckeyes didn’t take the game as seriously as the Hoosiers, and Ohio State wasn’t all that good, because look at the beating Miami gave that team. Indiana’s win wasn’t all that impressive.”
+ And when the contrarians were in a state of heightened arousal – insisting that Alabama would punk-slap the Hoosiers?
Well, this wasn’t the same Alabama. This was a lesser Alabama. This wasn’t Saban’s Alabama. Yeah. And Florida State beat Alabama by a lot, so this IU victory wasn’t all that substantive.
(OK, so why were all of you people pimping for Bama before the game?)
+ The Hoosiers mangled Oregon in the semifinal by 34 points?
Well, Indiana had a much older squad and that big edge in experience over Oregon made it too easy for Cignetti. And there was other stuff going on that we didn’t know at the time. But now we know the truth.”
(That “truth” surfaced from the online fever swamps with a crazed procession of pathetic tin-hat wearing loons accusing Indiana of cheating by stealing hand signals or tapping into Oregon’s electronic communications system to decode the next play call. Hey! Cignetti used to work for the CIA and he has allies there, doing the dirty work. This is espionage! I read all about it online!)
Good grief. Anything, you see, to deny Indiana the credit and respect that it has earned and reaffirmed over the last two seasons. America’s paranoia is truly an endless pit of cuckoo. Can the rest of us just watch a football game instead of attaching electrodes to our skulls and trying to chew off our own faces? Just wondering.
But rational people can make a case for Miami to take down Indiana … or at least cover the point spread. The enigmatic Hurricanes have peaked at the ideal time. And though I wasn’t as blown away as many others were by their opening-round win at Texas A&M, Miami fought and survived to win it and deserves 100 percent credit and respect for getting it done.
Because over the last two or three years, we have seen coach Mario Cristobal’s very talented teams succumb to pressure, lose discipline, and lapse into a state of boneheadedness. But not now. Not recently. And it’s been fascinating to watch.
The Hurricanes are under control and in control. Can they hold their composure against No. 1 Indiana during four quarters and possibly an overtime?
Indiana is a smart, focused, highly disciplined team that doesn’t defeat itself. The Hoosiers limit mistakes to a minimum and take advantage of the other side’s outbreak of mental errors and physical missteps.
Cignetti has a well-tuned machine with experienced players who make intelligent decisions in real time, effectively adjusting to opponents’ strategy of choice on both sides of the ball.
What about pure talent? Indiana’s starters on offense and defense averaged 2.5 stars – on a scale of 1-to-5 – when recruited out of high school. They average 4.3 seasons of college-football experience. Miami’s roster has a higher level of recruits and average 3.9 seasons of experience. Close enough.
Yes, Indiana has been a machine this season. There’s no denying that, and that’s why the metrics are so helpful – because it eliminates bias.
The Hoosiers are:
2nd nationally in overall expected points added, or EPA 1st on offensive EPA, 4th in defensive EPA.
2nd in success rate on offense. 5th in success rate on defense.
1st in net points per drive offensively. 2nd in limiting the opponents’ points per drive. First in quality-drive ratio, which takes in offense and defensive performance.
Miami averages 1.62 net points per drive. Indiana averages 2.71. Indiana’s defense has a better track record than Miami at limiting points per quality drive.
Indiana has been the better team on early downs – both slides of the ball – compared to Miami. And that’s also the case on 3rd-4th downs.
So how does Miami win this game, or at least cover the point spread?
All we have to do is look at Indiana's close calls this season: at Penn State, at Iowa, in the Big Ten title game against Ohio State, and in the Hoosiers’ regular-season game at Oregon. (Indiana won that contest by 10, but the score was tied 20-20 in the 4th quarter.)
This is what we learned from those challenging days for Indiana:
– Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza won the Heisman and has been extraordinary in the CFP. But based on passer rating, four of his five lowest ratings this season were posted against Oregon (regular season), Penn State, Ohio State and Iowa.
– The key to that was putting the pass-rush on Mendoza to hurry him up. Those four defenses pressured Mendoza a combined 52 times and had a collective pressure rate of 43 percent (very good.) His on-target rate dropped. And this is almost hard to believe, but it’s true: Mendoza had five touchdown passes and four interceptions in those games. Even though his overall passing performance against pass-rush pressure is one of the best in the nation, Mendoza has in fact been taken out of his comfort zone in at least four games this season. And Miami has an excellent pass rush.
– Not that any of these teams trampled the Indiana defense in the running game, but Penn State, Iowa, and Ohio State did enough to slow the game down and keep the score tight. The raw rushing totals were nothing special. But Penn State rushed 33 times for 117 yards including 104 yards that came after contact. Iowa drained the clock with 31 rushing attempts. Ohio State’s mediocre rushing total in the Big Ten title game was misleading because the Buckeyes had a solid positive-play run rate of 35 percent.
Again, all of these factors – harassing Mendoza on defense and stubbornly rushing the football on offense – combined to keep these games close. And if Miami can keep the game close, it gives the Hurricanes a chance to pull out a win at the end.
So can the Hurricanes replicate the factors that kept Penn State, Iowa, Ohio State and Oregon (in the regular season) close?
Why, yes. In addition to the disruptive pass rush and sack rate (No. 3 nationally), Miami also ranks among the top 25 FBS offenses in the volume of rushing attempts.
But none of these factors will matter if the Hurricanes commit dumb penalties, make too many physical or mental mistakes, mess up crucial game-management scenarios, or lose in the turnover differential. I’m just saying the Hurricanes have the kind of profile that has given Indiana fits this season.
This is crucial. The Hoosiers lead the country in turnover margin (1.4 per game) and rank second in penalty yards per game (26.9). Miami has a positive turnover ratio but averages 57.1 penalty yards per game (84th in the nation) and committed 10 penalties against Ole Miss in the 10-penalty CFP semifinal.
When the Hoosiers had a rematch with Oregon after that close fourth-quarter game on Oct. 11 … we know what happened. Cignetti and his coaches and players learned a helluva lot from that experience, made adjustments, and walloped the Ducks in the Peach Bowl.
And just because Mendoza was bothered by the pass rush in the games I cited earlier, it doesn’t mean it will happen in Monday’s conflict. In the two postseason wins over Alabama and Oregon, Mendoza was blitzed on 51% of dropbacks and hit on 80% of his throws for six touchdowns, only one turnover-worthy play, and an average of 13 yards per passing attempt.
Miami is playing a virtual home game, but we’ll see if Indiana fans can conduct a hostile takeover.
I can’t wait for this one. As of 3 p.m. Monday, Draft Kings reported that 61 percent of the handle and 66% of the bets were flowing to Indiana. And College Football Graphs gives IU a 56.5 percent win probability.
But yes, I think this one could be tight. Three projection systems that I pay attention to have the Hoosiers winning by margins between 3.5 and six points. My choice Monday is to take Indiana to win outright so I’ll stick with the money line. I just can’t assume Miami will play a clean and clear-headed football game and stay within 7 points of Indiana … but it’s certainly possible, which is why I’m going with the Hoosiers straight up.
Thanks for reading …
Bernie was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2023. During a St. Louis sports-media career that goes back to 1985, he’s won multiple national awards for column writing and sports-talk hosting – and was the lead sports columnist at the Post-Dispatch from 1989 through 2015. Before that Bernie spent a year at the Dallas Morning News, covering the Dallas Cowboys during Tom Landry’s final season (1988) plus the sale of the team to Jerry Jones and the hiring of Jimmy Johnson as coach.
Bernie has covered several Baseball Hall of Fame managers during his media career including Tony La Russa, Whitey Herzog, Earl Weaver, Joe Torre and (as an interim) Red Schoendienst. In his career as a beatwriter and columnist, Bernie covered Pro Football Hall of Fame coaches Joe Gibbs, Tom Landry, Jimmy Johnson and Dick Vermeil. Bernie covered every baseball Cardinals’ postseason game from 1996 through 2014 and was there to chronicle teams that won four NL pennants and two World Series. He provided extensive coverage on the “Greatest Show” St. Louis Rams and has written extensively on the St. Louis Blues and Mizzou football and basketball. Bernie was/is a longtime voter for the Baseball Hall of Fame, Pro Football Hall of Fame, Heisman Trophy and the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame.
You can access his columns, videos and the podcast version of the videos here on STL Sports Central, catch him regularly on KMOX (AM or FM) as part of the Gashouse Gang, Sports Rush Hour, Sports Open Line or Sports On a Sunday Morning shows. And you can catch weekly “reunion” segments here at STL Sports Central featuring Bernie and his longtime friend Randy Karraker.