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Indiana is 7-0 for the first time since 1967.
First-year head coach Curt Cignetti has a team worth taking seriously. The Hoosiers have not trailed for a single, solitary second of football all year. They have not yet allowed a point in the first quarter. They have not yet played a game that finished with a single-digit margin on the scoreboard.
The 16th-ranked Hoosiers rolled Nebraska (5-2) on Saturday in Bloomington, 56-7. They jumped out to a 28-7 halftime lead and just never let off the gas, even after making a move to the backup quarterback in the second half.
Here are 3 takeaways from the game.
Validation
No matter how high you may have been on Indiana entering Week 8, you probably still had a question or 2 somewhere. The Hoosiers played FIU, Western Illinois, and Charlotte in the nonconference. They began conference play against UCLA, Maryland, and Northwestern. In recent games against the Terps and the Wildcats, the defense showed some signs of slowing down. The offense was just never tested.
Nebraska, which entered Saturday’s contest with the No. 1 defense in the country according to SP+, looked like it would provide that first test. With FOX’s Big Noon Kickoff in town to spotlight the Hoosiers, some wondered how IU would handle the attention. Nebraska had an extra week to prepare. Maybe the Huskers could stun IU. Or, at the very least, make it work for a win.
Indiana aced its first big test.
The Hoosiers scored touchdowns on 8 of their 11 offensive possessions. (I’m not counting the 3-play drive at the end that featured kneel-downs.) They turned it over on downs in the first quarter and threw an interception on a hail mary at the end of the first half. Outside of that, Nebraska was helpless to stop the IU offense. In the first half, Kurtis Rourke led IU to 343 yards of total offense against a defense that came in yielding 272 yards of offense per game. Even though Rourke saw his day called at halftime (hand), IU still only faced 8 third downs all day.
On the other side, the defense forced 5 turnovers. They picked off NU quarterback Dylan Raiola 3 times. Dante Dowdell fumbled the football inside the Indiana 20 late in the first quarter. Raiola fumbled on fourth down in the fourth quarter. Nebraska hit the red zone 4 times and came away with 1 score.
This was a butt-kicking.
Maybe some will claim Nebraska was overrated after the fact. And maybe they’re right. But we can no longer ignore Indiana as a legitimate threat to make the College Football Playoff. The Hoosiers have rolled everyone. Good, bad, average, Indiana doesn’t seem to care. The Hoosiers can only play who they’re scheduled to play, so they can only control how they treat those teams.
And they’ve blasted all of them.
Nebraska’s defense disappoints
The Huskers had a chance to make a statement of their own, that this season was different, that this team was different, that the ineptitude showcased in the past was a product of those old regimes. On the road, in a building with a ton of juice, the Blackshirts needed to help out their freshman quarterback on the other side more than normal.
Getting repeatedly run over was not what Raiola needed.
Indiana needed 8 plays to score on its opening drive. Indiana went 88 yards in 6 plays on its third drive. Then it went 75 yards in 10 plays. Then it went 74 yards in 4 plays. While Raiola bears some of the blame for the missed throws, Indiana didn’t build its lead off short fields. Indiana built its lead by going over and through the Husker defense.
Nebraska entered Saturday’s game as the only defense in the country that had yet to allow a rushing touchdown. Indiana ran into the endzone 5 times. Tailback Justice Ellison had 105 yards and 2 scores on 9 carries.
The Hoosiers had 9 explosive runs. Nebraska was a defense that didn’t give up chunk runs and generated plays in the opposing backfield. Indiana limited the negative plays (4) and finished with a 27.3% explosive run rate. NU was pushed around up front and was terribly poor tackling in the second level.
This was a thoroughly disappointing performance from the Blackshirts at the worst time.
Rourke’s health
Rourke got popped on his throwing hand in the first half. At one point, his finger was bleeding pretty seriously. Throughout the second half, Rourke watched from the sideline in street clothes.
He finished the game 17-for-21 for 189 yards and a touchdown. He had a meaningless pick on a Hail Mary at the end of the half. He made some absolutely unbelievable throws as he evaded pressure and carved up the NU secondary.
Tayven Jackson replaced him in the second half and completed 7 of his 8 passes for 91 yards and 2 scores.
Indiana needs Rourke if it is going to continue this unbeaten run. Yes, the team Cignetti has built in Bloomington is a complete one. But Rourke is a legitimate star at quarterback. His health will be monitored closely in the coming days.
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.