How Indiana Football Did What Nobody Else Has: Win After First-Round CFP Bye

PASADENA, Calif. — Indiana football has made plenty of history, and accomplished an abundance of firsts, in less than two seasons under coach Curt Cignetti.

The No. 1 Hoosiers (14-0) added a few more in Thursday's 38-3 Rose Bowl victory over Alabama (11-4), perhaps none more nationally relevant than being the lone survivor from a College Football Playoff format that's bitten seven of its eight challengers.

Indiana faced plenty of questions about preparation and readiness during its 26-day gap between winning the Big Ten Championship on Dec. 6 and kicking off Jan. 1 in Pasadena — and for good reason.

In 2024, the College Football Playoff awarded bye weeks to the top four seeds after transitioning to a 12-team Playoff. Each of those teams lost in their opening game last year, watching their championship hopes crash and burn after an extended layoff.

The trend continued to open the 2025 Playoff, as No. 2 Ohio State lost to No. 10 Miami on Wednesday night and No. 4 Texas Tech fell to No. 5 Oregon on Thursday afternoon.

Entering the Rose Bowl, teams with the first-round bye week were 0-6. Indiana, as it's done time and again under Cignetti, broke a drought and did what nobody else has: Winning with a bye week. Even afterwards, No. 3 Georgia lost 39-34 to No. 8 Ole Miss.

Thus, through two years of the 12-team Playoff, only one of eight teams with the bye week and lengthy break between games has won — and it's Cignetti's Hoosiers.

As part of a program that's suddenly built an identity on doing what others can't, sixth-year senior running back Kaelon Black acknowledged Indiana took pride in being the first — and still, only — to win in spite of the time away.

"We wanted to break that streak of that happening," Black told Indiana Hoosiers On SI postgame. "Just seeing what has happened to the teams in the past and things like that, we just couldn't let it happen."

Black never doubted Indiana would emerge victorious, though he knew the unfavorable history surrounding the Hoosiers' position.

"Going into the game, I just had a great feeling about this one," Black said. "There was no way, us as a team, were going to let each other down. Coaches didn't let us down."

Indiana endured a 12-day wait between securing the No. 1 seed in the College Football Playoff and learning its opponent between No. 8 Oklahoma and No. 9 Alabama. The Hoosiers focused primarily on rest and recovery with enough practice to stay sharp.

Once Indiana knew it would face Alabama, the Hoosiers started game preparation the following day and adjusted their schedule to keep normal operating procedure.

There were, naturally, significant differences from the usual schedule. Indiana and Alabama played on a Thursday, and Cignetti and the Hoosiers arrived in Los Angeles on Monday night. Typically, they fly to the destination the night before games after a walk-through. This time, with media obligations Tuesday morning, Indiana had to break from its routine and flew out after a full-fledged practice.

In his press conference Wednesday morning, Cignetti expressed frustration with the schedule, calling it "disruptive." Cignetti wasn't pleased with the Hoosiers' first on-site practice Tuesday in Carson, Calif., though he later said his messaging is, at times, intended to reinforce his message to players.

Indians sixth-year senior tight end Riley Nowakowski implied the urgency processed.

"I mean, shoot, if you ask Coach Cig, I don't know if he was ever happy with our performance leading up to this week," Nowakowski told Indiana Hoosiers On SI postgame. "But I think we did a good job locking in. After you find out your opponent, that's kind of when we started ramping into game type practice.

"And I think that was kind of like the time where we were like, ‘Alright, it's really time to lock in to really, really get into this. We have an opponent now, it's game week.' So, I think we did a good job honing in on that stuff."

Perhaps to Nowakowski's surprise, Cignetti felt his team largely handled business in the lead-up to Thursday's dominating performance.

"Preparation's hard to gauge," Cignetti said postgame. "We had a great walk-through yesterday. I thought our mindset was really good. I liked our prep, for the most part, once we knew who the opponent was."

Indiana went three-and-out on its first offensive possession Thursday, but the Hoosiers' defense forced a punt on Alabama's opening drive. Indiana scored on six of its next seven possessions, including five touchdowns, and held the Crimson Tide scoreless for the first 42 minutes.

"In the first drive as an offense, myself included, I think we got off to a slow start," Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza said postgame. "And then other than that, once we got our feet wet, we got the ball rolling and we got back to playing Indiana brand of football.

"And so I think it was a great — overcoming that challenge as a team, having such a long time off. But I think we overcame that challenge and that showed on the field today."

Other offenses struggled with the layoff. Texas Tech didn't score in a 23-0 shutout loss to Oregon. Ohio State didn't score in the first half but found its rhythm in the second half, though it proved too late in a 24-14 loss to Miami.

Texas Tech coach Joey McGuire said postgame if the Red Raiders cited the layoff, it'd be an excuse, and he wants to avoid excuses within his program. Texas Tech's biggest offensive issue, in McGuire's eyes, stemmed from failing to execute at a higher level against a potent Oregon defense — though he seemed to imply the layoff proved troublesome.

"I think whenever you're in these games and you're playing teams that's every bit as good and every bit as talented as you are and vice versa, you've got to execute at a high level," McGuire said. "We'll see what everybody else says. We're in a world that makes no sense.

"But that's where we're at, and you've got to find a way to be better to win this game."

Ohio State coach Ryan Day said it took the Buckeyes "a while to get into the rhythm of the game," and after trailing 14-0 at halftime, had to be "really darn near perfect" in the second half to win. They ultimately fell short in the waning minutes.

"We put ourselves behind the eight ball," Day said postgame. "We worked really hard during the last three weeks leading up to this game to come out of the gates and win the first quarter, win the first half, be ready to go. I thought we had an excellent plan on that in what we did. I think the guys bought into it."

But, as Day acknowledged, the Buckeyes didn't get it done. Now, he'll head back to the drawing board in Columbus trying to understand why.

"I take responsibility for not getting the guys ready," Day said. "We spent an inordinate amount of time putting the plan together to get everybody ready to go play in that first half, and we didn't win the first half. So, we've got to figure out why that was and learn from it moving forward."

Humans are creatures of habit, Cignetti said. The extended layoff broke habits, and seven of the eight teams who've endured the period couldn't overcome the disruption.

Indiana did.

Under Cignetti, the Hoosiers have become proficient at beating human nature, at beating woeful history and at overcoming all odds to win games. Thursday merely marked the latest in a fast-growing line — only this one ended not with a Gatorade bath, but a shower of rose petals, for the orchestrator of college football's greatest turnaround.