Once In a Lifetime
By Ron Signore
In 2009, I graduated proudly from Purdue University. Purdue was not my ‘first’ choice for education considering I went to (then) Elmhurst College to play football for coach Tom Journell. When I broke my ankle for the umpteeth time, EC had one benefit: crutching around a small campus was both a good workout, but easier than a major university. I decided to transfer out and chose Purdue for various reasons, but it was the only school I applied to in that transition.
When you go to Purdue, there is a natural rivalry between Purdue and Indiana University. Both offer great education in various fields with Purdue being more of an engineering school and IU for more of that business future. They have rival spirit weekends in Grand Prix and Little 5, which essentially are weekend drunk fests, which I do not say as a bad thing. They are the quintessential college weekends for students who look to play hard.
Admittedly, one thing that attracted me to Purdue at the time was football. Led by Coach Joe Tiller, Purdue had a prolific football history with a reputation of airing the ball out around the field. IU on the other hand had very little relevance in college football beyond some solid talent who made it at the pro level, like Antwan Randell-El and Trent Green.
Things are different in 2024. Purdue has continued it’s ongoing slide to irrelevance in the college football landscape. However, IU is on a whole other trajectory. This year is the first season for Coach Curt Cignetti at IU, and he has lived up to the hype. He stood up at his introduction conference claiming people should google him because all he does is win. Admittedly, that type of arrogance typically has me rooting for a teams downfall, especially when they are the rival to your alma mater.
Cignetti’s Hoosiers have lived up to the hype at just about every turn. They kept on winning game after game until a late season Big 10 Conference clash with Ohio State. Ohio State was able to hand IU their first, and only, loss in the 2024 bid to this point, which has kept them in an unusual climb amongst the top 25 teams in the country. That climb has put the college football world revolving around IU in what can only be described as a once in a lifetime opportunity to this point.
The tenth ranked Indiana Hoosiers secured a bid in the BCS College Football Playoffs for a chance at a National Championship. They are one of four teams from the Big 10 Conference in the playoffs that include Ohio State, Penn State, and conference champion Oregon. Even more rare, the 10th ranked Hoosiers paired up against in-state rival, set to visit the 7th ranked Fighting Irish of Notre Dame on 12/20.
The game opened with Notre Dame being an 8.5 point home favorite. It is less than 24 hours since the announcement of the game and the line has already been driven down to ND being favored by 8 points, meaning, people grabbed the 8.5 quick in belief that IU will cover that spread. I think they have a good reason to take that approach.
While both teams sit at 11-1, Notre Dame sits in the FBS Independent “conference,” meaning they have no tie to any formal conference in football. While the Fighting Irish have played good football, there is no denying they do not face a true conference schedule. The strength of schedule for the 2024 season has the Fighting Irish with the 59th hardest schedule throughout, while the Hoosiers showed to have the 67th hardest schedule this season. While I hold that as an indicator to how closely paired these teams may very well be, I think the additional teams that comprise of the Big Ten these days align with a top battling conference.
Notre Dame’s lone loss came as a very disappointing loss with falling to a MAC team in Northern Illinois University at home after opening the season with a big road win in College Station. That game exposed a lot of flaws, but none more difficult to overlook that they couldn’t pound down a team that really didn’t belong in their presence. The weeks following that loss in early September echoed the Notre Dame football universe with cries of the season being over. Coach Marcus Freeman, who I admit brought me back to being a Notre Dame fan, drove this team to efficiently run the table dominating teams like USC, a ranked Army team, a respectable University of Virginia team, a disappointing, though potentially dangerous Florida State team, and Navy in their last 5 games.
Indiana’s lone loss to Ohio State can tell a completely different story. Losing to Ohio State 38-15 on the road was losing to a team they probably should have been expected to lose to. They played well. They played hard. They came up short. Based on strength of schedule, it could have been argued that the teams they beat were not dominant enough to keep them ranked as high as they should have. The argument really came down to believing that OSU loss exposed that they arguably had a cake walk until then. But they rebounded from that loss with a 66-0 statement win against my beloved Boilermakers to close the season.
The Hoosiers put up the most points in the Big 10 this season with 360 against allowing 152; 520 points for and 176 against overall including non-conference games. The Fighting Irish put up 478 points and only allowed 163 all year in their hodge podge schedule of games. Statistically, these teams are fairly close to as even as could be. Notre Dame’s defense is stingy, which will be beneficial as they look to control a more assertive air attack from an IU offense that tallied just over 2800 yards in the air from Senior QB Kurtis Rourke that connected with standout Junior WR Elijah Sarratt for 890 yards and 8 TD’s. Their defense was no slouch either allowing 245 yard per game to opposing offenses.
The Irish will have to work their more balanced offensive attack led by transfer QB Riley Leonard and RB Jeremiah Love which eclipsed for over 3000 years between them offensively. Though they have given up an average of 50 yards more per game defensively, they have held their opponents to less points per game than the visiting Hoosiers, but only by about 1 point per game.
One thing is for sure, Coach Cignetti will bring his Hoosiers into a hostile environment with that Ohio State loss as a chip on their shoulder ready to continue to prove they belong in this prime position to make a run. The 8 points is a lot of points and over a key number of 7. I will be leaning on taking the points down to 7.5 barring any catalysts that change the perception of the game. I think this Hoosier team will rival the looks of what ND saw against USC, which won by capitalizing on mistakes. Otherwise, it was a tight contest. I will likely look to add a teaser in there to tease up IU through 14 points as games become more analyzed as we approach the playoff and bow game kick offs.
Click Here to Order Boxing Interviews Of A Lifetime By “Bad” Brad Berkwitt