‘Necessary for our growth’: Better prepared IU eager to avenge 2024 loss to Ohio State
- Josh Pos
- 1m ago
As he made the trek back to the visiting locker room on the north end of Ohio Stadium, Curt Cignetti winked as Ohio State fans hurled words of mockery. Their Buckeyes just completed a 38-13 beatdown of Indiana, delivering them their first loss of the season.
Silence filled the short flight back to Bloomington as the Hoosiers went down without a fight in their first test.
One season later, Cignetti will lead his No. 2 Hoosiers into a clash with No. 1 Ohio State in Indianapolis’ Lucas Oil Stadium on Saturday night in the Big Ten championship game.
The cold Saturday afternoon in Columbus wasn’t memorable, but it provided Cignetti’s program a learning opportunity for the future.
“While that was not an enjoyable experience, it was an experience that was necessary for our growth and development to go into a hostile environment,” Cignetti said. “I think we’ve learned a lot since the last time we played them.”
This time around, Indiana enters the showdown with a wealth of experience in big games. The Hoosiers showed road resiliency in 2025, winning at Iowa, Oregon, and Penn State – all in the final minutes.
Those finishes reflected Indiana’s growth as a program since that loss to Ohio State. And now all eyes will be on the first No. 1 vs. No. 2 conference championship game in Big Ten history. Still, Cignetti expects his team to maintain the same process that led them to Saturday.
“We’ve met every challenge up to this point because we prepare consistently the way you need to prepare and put it on the field,” he said. “That’s what it’s going to take this week: detailed preparation, commit to the preparation, eliminate the noise and the clutter, put yourself in the best position to play your best on Saturday, individually and collectively.”
The two teams spent the last three weeks on a collision course to face off in Saturday’s conference championship game. Both teams walloped opponents weekly, setting their eyes on Indianapolis.
Ohio State certainly isn’t dwelling on getting another crack at Indiana. The team went on to win the national championship and the Hoosiers are the program that the Buckeyes haven’t lost to since 1987. However, for Indiana’s returners, the memory of last year’s embarrassment still lingers.
Isaiah Jones remembers the empty feeling of the losing locker room postgame. The Hoosiers did everything they could to lose the game. The poor performance on special teams and the offense’s inability to get the ball out of the shadow of the north end zone highlighted a highly forgettable trip.
Now, Jones and the Hoosiers collectively gear up for redemption.
“Last year’s game didn’t go how we wanted, and they were the only guys to beat us last year in the regular season,” Jones said. “This game is pretty personal to a lot of guys on the team, coaches included.”
Like Indiana, Ohio State is a better all-around team than it was a year ago. Their offense is prolific and their defense leads the country in almost every statistical category. Though they’re spending the week watching hours of film, the Hoosiers understand the Buckeyes and their tendencies.
“We know who they are,” Jones said. “We know their strengths and their weaknesses. We’re all excited to get out there and see them again.”
Running back Kaelon Black still has the loss replaying in his head. The deafening silence of the plane ride is etched into memory as a “horrible” experience.
Returners like Black and Jones haven’t had many conversations with the newcomers who weren’t a part of the loss. It isn’t a taboo subject; it simply belongs to a past version of the team.
“We’re just going to play Indiana’s brand of football, the new Indiana,” Black said. “And just making sure we’re taking it day by day, staying focused.”
Black didn’t define “new Indiana” as the Cignetti era. Instead, it marks the separation from last season – a clean slate that puts past successes and failures in the rearview mirror while turning mistakes into future successes.
Old Indiana let the moment get too big, crumbling under the pressure on the road. New Indiana insists it’s ready for the weight of Saturday night’s heavyweight bout and to finally put last year’s failures to rest.
Despite the stakes, Cignetti and his staff will push forward as if it were any other week. They will continue to prep the same way as they did ahead of Old Dominion.
“It’s my job to make sure that happens,” Cignetti said. “With that done, five days from now, our guys will walk on the field with confidence that they will get the job done.”
If Indiana is celebrating at midfield by Sunday morning, it won’t just be a win. It will be an exorcism decades in the making — the end of one era and the birth of another.
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