'It's a Challenge': How Indiana Football Prepared for 'Loud, Hostile' Iowa Crowd

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Pass by Memorial Stadium at around 5:30 p.m. during weeks where Indiana football has road games, and you'll likely hear a steady dose of pumped-in crowd noise.

You may not hear much else.

"It's loud," Indiana senior center Pat Coogan said Tuesday. "I mean, it's loud and obnoxious, and it rings your ears. And then we had it on for the whole two hours, or however long we were out there today. There's no breaks or anything, because there's not going to be any breaks on Saturday, really.

"So, it's good preparation for us."

Getting acquainted to crowd noise — or battling through the obnoxiousness of a generic, monotone, full-volume sound for two hours — is the price No. 11 Indiana (4-0, 1-0 Big Ten) is forced to pay for salvation this week, as it faces Iowa (3-1, 1-0 Big Ten) at 3:30 p.m. Saturday inside Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City.

The Hoosiers have opened the season with four games at home, and they've won each of their last three contests by 45-plus points. Their 37.7-point average margin of victory is second-best in the FBS, trailing only Penn State.

Apart from a pair of long touchdown runs conceded to Old Dominion quarterback Colton Joseph in Week 1, Indiana has, by and large, been unbothered this season.

The biggest crowd-related obstruction Indiana faced came against Illinois in the first half of Week 4, when the fans inside Memorial Stadium continued singing along to "Living on a Prayer" while the Hoosiers' offense entered the huddle.

Indiana coach Curt Cignetti expects the Kinnick Stadium crowd to pose a much greater test Saturday. Iowa sold out tickets for the game — which headlines the Hawkeyes' Homecoming weekend — in July. It marks Iowa's 24th consecutive home sell-out, a streak that dates back to the start of the 2022 season.

Subsequently, the Hoosiers spent extensive time during the week immersing themselves to the raucous conditions they anticipate enduring Saturday.

"It's a challenge, for sure. There's no doubt about it," Coogan said about Iowa's noise. "But you got to prepare for it. You got to prepare for it Monday, Tuesday, every single day leading up to it. You can't just, like, turn it on, on Friday and expect to be good. You got to prepare for it. And you got to make sure everyone's tuned into the cadences and all the little things that sometimes you can gloss over.

"Because you can hear everything, everything's good, you're at home. But now, it's going to be a bigger challenge. So, you got to prepare for it and make sure everyone's on the same page."

Indiana's defense faces the same crowd-related trouble, just from a different perspective. Through the first four weeks of the season, the Hoosiers fed off the energy inside Memorial Stadium. Loud environments help defenders play fast, free and with minimal thinking. The game flows naturally.

When Indiana's defense takes the field in Iowa City, it'll hear nothing but its own voices barking commands to one another — an adjustment of its own.

The crowd will go silent for the Hawkeyes' offense pre-snap, allowing quarterback Mark Gronowski time to adjust the play-call and set his protection. Indiana senior linebacker Aiden Fisher and his teammates want to keep the silence post-snap.

Regardless, Fisher knows noise is coming — and it might even be most prominent when he's sitting on the Hoosiers' bench in between drives.

"The key plays are always going to get loud," Fisher said. "You can get heckled on the sideline, things like that. Obviously, defensively, it's not gonna be as loud as they try to be quiet for their offense. But going into a new environment, it's hostile, it's loud, all those things that play into it.

"You just got to stay level-minded and block out all that noise and just focus on ourselves. And make sure our communication is key and not letting other stuff affect us, especially the outside noise, especially when we're there."

Fisher felt the Hoosiers' defense struggled in loud stadiums last season. Indiana lost both of its biggest, most boisterous road games last season — at Ohio State on Nov. 23 and at Notre Dame on Dec. 20 — and Fisher said the Hoosiers' communication faltered at times.

Indiana has been proactive regarding its communication this week. The Hoosiers' defense flourished against Illinois in front of a record-setting Memorial Stadium crowd, one that forced Indiana to rely heavily on signals because Fisher's teammates couldn't hear his directives.

Fisher anticipates moments Saturday where signals and non-verbal instructions will overrule his voice. He and the Hoosiers are prepared for it.

"I was taking that and acknowledging it," Fisher said of Indiana's communication struggles last season. "But moving forward with an effective plan."

Indiana's offense faces a bigger challenge. Kinnick Stadium holds 70,585 fans, and the Hawkeyes are searching for a signature win. Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz, now the record holder for most wins by a coach in Big Ten history, hasn't beaten a ranked team in his last 10 tries.

Cignetti said the unranked Hawkeyes are a bigger challenge than Illinois, which arrived in Bloomington ranked No. 9 nationally.

Iowa is physical and disciplined, and it has history on its side. Since 2008, the Hawkeyes have won four straight games, and eight of the last nine overall, against Indiana. Iowa has won six of its last seven Homecoming games, including its last three, and is 10-5-1 all-time against Indiana during Homecoming weekend.

Under Cignetti, the Hoosiers have proven disobedient to following trends of their past. They'll get another chance to pen a new chapter Saturday in Iowa City — and they have full plans of capitalizing, crowd noise or not.

"It's a historic stadium, a really good venue," Fisher said. "But at the end of the day, it's a business trip. We're going there to win a football game. So, you can't be consumed by the history and tradition there."