‘This place is special’: Fisher, seniors get proper send-off as No. 2 Indiana rolls on Senior Day
- Josh Pos
- 49m ago
After wrapping up his postgame obligations, Indiana linebacker Aiden Fisher had one last task: hustle off the field and step through the northwest doors of Merchants Bank Field at Memorial Stadium.
A thunderous roar from the remaining fans met him there. As Fisher tossed a towel to a young fan who had been pleading for one, chants of “Aidan Fisher” echoed overhead while he slipped through the double doors.
It was the final time the senior made that victorious run to the locker room. Fisher played his 15th and final game in Bloomington on Saturday afternoon, a 31–7 win for No. 2 Indiana against Wisconsin.
“I’ve never really been a place over people type of person, but this place is special,” he said postgame. “I think it is the people that make it.
“Just jogging off and hearing some of the things they were saying, chants and whatnot, just kind of makes you appreciate it.”
Fisher felt a wave of anticipation as he joined his fellow seniors and their families for a pregame ceremony on the field. An emotional person by nature, he was overcome with emotion as his family took a picture with coach Curt Cignetti.
Cignetti and Fisher have a deep-rooted history spanning more than half a decade. Fisher was an unranked player out of high school, but Cignetti recruited him to play at James Madison.
After two strong seasons at JMU, Fisher followed Cignetti, giving the underrecruited linebacker a chance to finally prove himself nationally.
Fisher’s junior year at Indiana ended with first-team All-American honors, making him the first linebacker in program history to earn that honor.
On an unusually warm November afternoon, Fisher stood with his family on the north end of the stadium. As the public address announcer announced Fisher’s name over the loudspeakers, Indiana fans cheered louder for him than for any other player.
With his family by his side and emotions running high, Fisher reminded himself — and everyone around him — that there was still work to do.
“I told my mom, none of this matters if we don’t win this game,” he said. “I told [Indiana director of athletics Scott Dolson] as well, I was like, all right, let’s go win a football game before we start celebrating.”
Fisher delivered another signature performance. Indiana’s defensive leader once again orchestrated a dominant outing.
The Hoosiers held the Badgers’ offense to 168 yards, allowing just one touchdown late in the second quarter. With one last halftime break in the home locker room, Fisher tasked himself with rallying his teammates after a sluggish first half.
Under Fisher’s steady leadership, Indiana stymied Wisconsin’s freshman quarterback Carter Smith in the second half. The Badgers were held scoreless and never crossed midfield in their final six possessions.
Fisher, with JMU transfers Mikail Kamara and Elijah Sarratt, finished 15-0 at home, winning by an average of 37.9 points. The group that once called itself “Group of Five All-Stars” reinvented itself as bullies in the Big Ten.
Earlier in the week, Cignetti called the seniors “tremendous foundational pieces” of the program. But as a coach who rarely gets emotional, he didn’t elaborate much — mainly because of the uncertainty surrounding what comes next.
“It’s hard for me to look at it that way because we all understand what we’ve accomplished together and what’s down the road,” Cignetti said. “We don’t know for a fact that it is our last game here at home, but we hope it is.
“We’ve got a rival game coming up in two weeks, and then hopefully we’ll see what happens after that.”
Indiana’s season appears to be still two months from finishing, but one thing is sure. The senior class played a pivotal role in establishing a culture of winning in the Indiana football program.
Still, there’s no such thing as finished business for this Indiana team. Everyone was brought in with two goals: to win a Big Ten championship and to win a national championship.
With an upcoming bye week, the Hoosiers have a chance to rest and recover. After that, they head to West Lafayette with a trip to the Big Ten title game on the line.
“We’re not satisfied with what it is right now,” Fisher said. “We have goals that we’ve set out, but it’s all about taking it game by game.”
When Fisher arrived at Indiana, Memorial Stadium barely registered for most students. Before the first game of 2024, he spoke to a group on campus — most of them told him that attending football games wasn’t something people typically did.
Stunned, Fisher set out to change that, determined to fill the stands and give students winning football worth watching.
Now, as Bloomington buzzes about football into mid-November, much of that transformation traces back to the captain of the 11–0 Hoosiers — the same one fans chanted for as he disappeared through the doors one final time.
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