Welcome to The Brief, a space for bigger-picture observations.
Let’s get one thing straight: Now in its third season, IU football under Curt Cignetti continues to be a well-oiled machine. The Hoosiers, once a doormat of the Big Ten and college football writ large, are 35-3 since Cignetti arrived on campus. They’ve lost just two regular-season Big Ten games in 24 tries – both to Ohio State. This is an elite program.
Still, despite an 8-1 record so far this season and a top-10 ranking throughout, there’s a prevailing feeling that things are different. That’s because they are. In Cignetti’s first two seasons, the Hoosiers often dominated opponents, stepping on the gas across four quarters for blowout victory after blowout victory. They scored a lot of points. They were clinical and relentless.
That hasn’t been the case this season. Indiana is scoring less. Close, overtime thrillers have replaced comfortable victories.
Cignetti has had to rely on an elite defense, as his offense has struggled to convert red-zone opportunities into touchdowns and his special teams have been less reliable, particularly in the kicking game.
If anything, IU football has become a victim of its own success. When you go 16-0 and win a national championship the way the Hoosiers did last year, you set up near-impossible expectations for what comes next. It’s become difficult for fans to separate the continued winning from an overall team performance that’s packing less of a punch. There’s a cognitive dissonance there.
Yet, in the end, over nine games this season, Indiana continues to do the most important thing. It’s winning games — a lot of them.
With all this said, let’s dive into some numbers around just how different things have been between this season and Cignetti’s first two:
Indiana’s average margin of victory in league play has dropped. A lot.
Across the 2024 and 2025 campaigns, Indiana’s average margin of victory in Big Ten play was remarkably steady at nearly 30 points per win. But this season tells a different story, as the Hoosiers are winning by just an average of 11 points across their five wins so far this season.
And if we remove their 47-15 victory against Rutgers, their only blowout win in conference play? Things get even tighter. In Indiana’s four other Big Ten victories, the average margin of victory is just 5.8 points.
Indiana’s offense is still moving the ball, but third-down conversion rate, red-zone touchdown rate and success rate have all regressed.
A big reason why Indiana is scoring less? So far this season, its offense is less effective at sustaining drives and less consistent at finishing things off. Looking at this season so far vs. the entire 2024 and 2025 campaigns, yards per play is actually up in 2026 (6.9 vs. 6.8 in 2025 and 6.5 in 2024). A slightly higher explosive-play rate in 2026 helps explain that increase.
But this season has brought the lowest third-down conversion rate, red-zone touchdown rate and success rate of the three campaigns.
In 2024 and 2025, Indiana converted around 50 percent of its third downs (47.2% and 56.3%, respectively). So far this season, that’s dropped to 40.2 percent. And after scoring a touchdown on 79.7 percent of its red-zone opportunities in 2024 and 72.7 percent in 2025, that figure has fallen to 64.7 percent this year.
When we narrow the comparison to regular-season Big Ten play, those red-zone numbers look even worse. The Hoosiers have only a 54.2 percent red-zone touchdown rate in 2026, compared to 76.3 percent in 2025 and 82.9 percent in 2024.
According to data from Punt & Rally, Indiana’s success rate has fallen from 52 percent in 2024 and 51 percent in 2025 to 44 percent this season.
These numbers match the eye test, too. Often this season, Indiana seemed on the verge of opening things up and returning to 2024 and 2025 form, only for a drive to stall out or for them to be unable to punch it in for six when they’re on the doorstep. And in Indiana’s recent back-to-back overtime victories, the struggles have been even more pronounced, as the offense has inspired little confidence for long stretches.
Simply put, under Josh Hoover — and with Grant Wilson playing the second half against Minnesota — the offense has been more out of sync and less consistently on schedule than it was during the Kurtis Rourke and Fernando Mendoza tenures.
Thank God for the defense.
Bryant Haines continues to lead a group that’s one of the best in college football. To offset the offense’s lower output this season, the defense is allowing just 12.4 points per game – third best in the country.
Also third nationally? Their defensive success rate is 31.4 percent. The Hoosiers are also allowing -0.064 EPA per play, which is 11th best in the country.
And Indiana’s defensive efficiency ranks fifth in the country, according to ESPN’s FPI.
Without the stout defense, Indiana might have more losses on the ledger. With it, they remain squarely in the mix for a third straight trip to the College Football Playoff.
