Indiana football went from no bowl wins since the 1990s to two wins in New Year’s Six games in one season.
The No. 1-seed Hoosiers dominated No. 5-seed Oregon 56-22 in the Peach Bowl on Friday night, advancing
to the College Football Playoff National Championship Game for the first time in program history. It’s, without a doubt, the biggest win in program history up to this point and the latest in a series of several statements made by this team in the 2025-26 season.
There’s a lot to talk about from the game. Here’s five things we learned:
- Fernando Mendoza is putting together an all-time playoff run at quarterback. He’s played just two games with the first round bye, but he’s missed on just five of his passing attempts while throwing for eight passing touchdowns. Five incompletions, eight touchdowns. Those are numbers typically only produced by setting a video game to easy and messing with sliders a bit. He’s not piling on the yardage, having yet to reach 200 passing yards in a game, but he’s effective where he needs to be.
- Indiana can stay dominant, not just competitive, in spite of multiple injuries. Missing Kellen Wyatt and Stephen Daley is a pretty big deal. Indiana’s depth at the end was pretty thin throughout the season and there were some worries when the former went down before the latter’s snaps increased and he provided consistent, excellent production. Indiana had to change a few things around on the line without them and managed to put together a defense that completely shut down Alabama and stifled Oregon multiple times even when you consider the Ducks’ self-inflicted mistakes that contributed to the blowout.
- The offense is at its best when the ball is spread around, and the staff knows this. This was true last year when the offense was built on Kurtis Rourke effectively playing point guard with several options at receiver who could all produce yards after the catch. Indiana built itself rather intentionally in that way and Big Ten defenses weren’t equipped to defend that many targets in the RPO game. They tried something similar earlier this year and found less success, instead leaning heavily on Elijah Sarratt and Omar Cooper. When that became easier to defend with the lack of options, the offense became more of a college spread, with Charlie Becker’s emergence supercharging it. Now Indiana has ways to use guys like Becker and E.J. Williams, who are more effective in that configuration than winning in the RPO. Seven Hoosiers caught passes against the Ducks, with Indiana saving Becker for the long ball and Sarratt being excellent on a down to down basis.
- You can’t make mistakes against this team. It should go without saying that Indiana was able to blow out Oregon because the Ducks made several game-changing mistakes on offense in the first half. D’Angelo Ponds read Dante Moore’s first pass all the way and returned it for six before multiple fumbles set Indiana up in prime scoring position to build an all but insurmountable lead in the first half. Obviously Indiana was put in several fortuitous situations, but the Hoosiers’ ability to capitalize on them instead of letting them go to waste is another thing that sets this program apart.
- Indiana is a national championship-caliber program. The Hoosiers are in the national championship game and are undefeated at 15-0 with several wins over AP top-10 competition, with two blowouts in the first two games of their playoff run. This is a program that can win a title, maybe multiple if this continues.
