The IU football standard will be, and has been, the perfect travel companion for road games

Photos from IU football's 56-3 win against Purdue.

For the first time this season, IU football will play away from home as it travels to face Rutgers at SHI Stadium.

If you are familiar with the traits of Curt Cignetti’s Indiana program, you can probably tell it will not make much difference. If you needed a refresher, Cignetti made it clear earlier in the week.

“We’re going on the road,” Cignetti said. “Still playing on a 100-yard football field, 52 yards wide. [We have] a lot of veterans on this team that have been there.”

Cignetti has coached nine regular-season road games at Indiana. All are against Big Ten opponents. He is 8-1 in those games with an average score of 37.0-17.4. The lone loss came on the road to the eventual national champion Ohio State in 2024.

Including the CFP loss to 2024 runner-up Notre Dame, Cignetti is 8-2 in true road games. In all games away from Bloomington, Cignetti is 12-2, with both losses coming to the two participants in the 2024 CFP national championship game. They remain the only two losses of his Indiana tenure.

He has remained adamant and consistent in his mindset in every game of the season. It does not matter if the game is at home or on the road. It does not matter if the opponent is a ranked powerhouse or an FCS team. Indiana’s standard is Indiana’s standard. It will not change.

“I say it all the time, you prepare for them all the same, otherwise you’d be doing a disservice to your team. You’re all-in on one game and not all-in on another?” Cignetti said before Indiana’s trip to Autzen Stadium to face Oregon last season.

Indiana has scored 40-plus points in five of its nine regular-season road games under Cignetti, including two games of 50-plus. It has allowed 24 points or fewer in eight of the nine games, with five performances of 15 or fewer points. The average score margin is +19.6.

For comparison, Indiana has scored 40-plus points in five of its 10 regular-season Big Ten home games under Cignetti, with four games of 50-plus. It has allowed under 17 points in eight of the 10, with no team scoring more than 28. Indiana has outscored its opponents 43.2-12.9 for an average score margin of +30.3.

All things considered, Indiana’s drop-off from home to road games in conference play is fairly minimal. Indiana has proved that it can hold its own on the road.

That is because it does not view anything as different.

“Whether we’re playing in the Rose Bowl or in a parking lot. It’s all the same,” Cignetti said before shellacking UCLA 42-13 on the road in 2024. It was his first road game at Indiana.

While traveling to Piscataway, New Jersey, for the first road game of 2026 may not be as newsworthy or dramatic as the 2024 Rose Bowl trip, the principles still hold true. Cignetti doesn’t overlook anyone, but he knows what he needs to do to beat them.

“Rutgers this week is a team that it’s their homecoming,” Cignetti said. “They’re expecting a sellout, blackout, 56,000 people. They’re capable of scoring points and they do score points.”

The Scarlet Knights are 1-3 with a win over FCS Howard and losses to UMass, Boston College and USC. They have scored 33.8 points per game, but have also allowed 28.5 points per game.

Indiana’s players are ready for the challenge. Meeting that challenge is not about Rutgers. It is about Indiana.

“We just have our standard and we’re going to live up to that,” running back Lee Beebe Jr. said. “We’re just going to take it day by day, have great practices through Friday and be ready for Rutgers.”

Everyone in the IU program is on the same page – Rutgers is the next game on the schedule. Just as Oregon once was. Same with Iowa, Penn State, UCLA, Purdue and every other road game. It just happens to be in a different stadium.

“It’s a business trip,” Cignetti said.

History has shown that this philosophy of thinking works. The Hoosiers will have the same traits, same players and same standard against the Scarlet Knights in Piscataway on Saturday. They will just do it in white jerseys instead of crimson and in a different stadium.

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