Well you can call that a lot of things. Beatdown, blowout, steamrolling, clobbering, football game, etc.
Indiana football faced little if any resistance in its 73-0 thumping of Indiana State on Friday night. That’s to be expected, if a power conference team has trouble with most FCS opponents, as Indiana did with Idaho during that ill-fated 2021 season, it’s typically a sign of bad things to come.
Indiana had zero trouble. Indiana State was lucky to not have zero yards.
Alberto Mendoza… hello
Alberto Mendoza got some time
in when the Hoosiers crushed Kennesaw State last week, but that was mostly mop-up duty in the fourth quarter when the game was well in hand. Tonight’s edition of the Mendoza Flip TM featured the younger brother starting the entire second half.
Alberto completed six of his nine attempts for a nice 104 passing yards and two touchdowns, adding in 17 yards on the ground for good measure. Late game reps against a team as poorly matched as Indiana State can only tell you so much but good coaches leverage these opportunities to give young quarterbacks valuable playing time against a defense that isn’t their own.
It’s good for Alberto that he got this time. It could be even better for Indiana down the line.
Khobie Martin… also hello
Much like Mendoza, redshirt freshman running back Khobie Martin got in some action and showed off some of what made him an enticing prospect out of Fishers High School in Fishers, Indiana. He’s just really, really hard to get on the ground and the Sycamores wanted no part of trying for the most part.
Martin committed when Tom Allen was leading the program and stayed signed on when Curt Cignetti took over. Fortunately for both, Martin fits the stout, bruising archetype that Cignetti and RBs coach John Miller really seem to like.
He can carve out an important role for Indiana’s future and might figure to do so sooner if Lee Beebe misses significant time.
Curt Cignetti taking zero reps off
Everyone’s seen the screenshots of Cignetti looking mad as hell on the sidelines while his team is up by a gazillion points and today was no different.
He went the extra mile of clearly giving Fernando Mendoza a talking to after he misread a handoff and ended up getting hit unnecessarily. If he hands the ball off there rather than keeping it, the Hoosiers likely get in the endzone.
This was a game Indiana ended up dominating and Cignetti spent every minute coaching like it was a tie. Vintage stuff.
