EUGENE, Ore. — Just outside Autzen Stadium, inside a small, crowded visitors locker room, every one of Indiana’s players waited to celebrate. The man of the hour had yet to arrive.
On the field, Indiana coach Curt Cignetti couldn’t help but soak up the moment. His team had just waltzed into one of the most impenetrable road environments in the sport and emerged with the first road victory any team has had in Eugene since 2022. The 30-20 win over No. 3 Oregon left a stadium once packed with yellow-clad Ducks fans empty but for a small sea of red-wearing road fans eager to chant his name.
“Cig! Cig! Cig!”
Cignetti flashed a wry smile. He conducted a postgame interview, during which he said he didn’t care about Indiana’s doubters, using cookies and brownies to make his analogy. Then, as he went on the CBS Sports postgame set to further relish the win, he continued to be serenaded. Hoosiers fans trickled onto the field, took selfies with athletic director Scott Dolson and followed Cignetti out of the stadium as if he were a rock star who had just wrapped up his show.
Even though Indiana had come into the game undefeated and ranked seventh in the country, this was as big a statement as any team has made this season and the biggest win of Cignetti’s tenure in Bloomington.
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“We’re a real team,” quarterback Fernando Mendoza said. “We’re not just a one-hit wonder.”
When Cignetti finally made his way to the locker room, it was time for his players to chant his name and begin the celebration in earnest.
“We want Cig! We want Cig!”
After surprising college football last year with an 11-1 regular-season campaign and a College Football Playoff berth, it was unclear whether Cignetti and the Hoosiers would replicate that magic in 2025. But through six games this season, Indiana has produced an encore with even more confidence and swagger than last year.
“We’re primed for games like this,” linebacker Aiden Fisher said. “This is why we play this game. That’s why you come to Indiana.”
Even though Cignetti said Saturday that the vociferous approach he used to defend his team’s place among the sport’s best last season has evolved into something more reserved, his players are still quick to credit him for their conviction.
“You want to play for someone like Coach Cig, who is so confident in himself that it flows to his players,” Fisher said. “A lot of people ask, ‘Why [did] you follow Cignetti [from James Madison]?’ This is why. Nothing but complete trust in him. He’s better than anyone in the country. That’s why people want to play for him.”
In a game that featured two sudden NFL draft darlings at quarterback in Mendoza and Oregon’s Dante Moore, who both attracted a row full of pro scouts to watch them, what transpired was not a shootout nor a showcase, but a battle of attrition that Indiana won on both sides of the ball.
For most of the game, every yard and completion seemed to carry more weight than normal. Possessions were few. Touchdowns were even fewer. Perhaps nothing shed more light on the struggle in this game than Oregon coach Dan Lanning — who has gone for it on fourth down 17 times this season (four in this game) — facing a fourth-and-2 on the Indiana 16-yard-line and opting for a 33-yard field goal that tied the score at 13 in the third quarter.
Every point mattered, but in the end, the Ducks did not have enough on offense to hold their ground. Their sole offensive touchdown came in the first quarter.
“Our defense really took it to them in the second half,” Cignetti said. “Our guys wanted it. They showed they wanted it on the field.”
After Moore threw his second interception in the fourth quarter that sealed the result, the rare silence that hung in the air inside a stadium that started the day as loud as ever had gone from concern to resignation. Even if Cignetti shied away from responding to any doubters postgame, his players were happy to take the baton and do it for him.
“I think there was someone in the media that said our D-line was too small for this team, so you lit a fire under our team,” Fisher said.
There is, as Cignetti made sure to point out postgame, a lot of football left to play this season. This puts the Hoosiers in a good position going forward, he said, but it all depends on what they do with it. Last year’s dream season ended against Notre Dame in the playoffs, but if there was any doubt about whether Indiana belongs among the sport’s playoff contenders, Saturday’s win on a gloomy, rainy afternoon in Eugene erased it.
“We passed that test. It’s a great win for our program,” Cignetti said, smiling again. “I’m looking forward to enjoying this one.”
