Entering the year, few expected Indiana to be better than the 2024 team that shocked the college football world. But after Saturday’s 63–10 demolition of Illinois, it’s hard not to believe that Curt Cignetti’s squad has improved in Year 2.
FOX Sports lead college football analyst Joel Klatt agrees. He pointed to the upgrade at quarterback —from Kurtis Rourke to Fernando Mendoza —as a key reason he believes the Hoosiers are better than their 11-1 team in 2024.
“I did not think that they could be better than they were a year ago. They are,” Klatt said. “Mendoza is better than Rourke, and Rourke was really good. This is not to take anything away from Kurtis Rourke. Mendoza is made for this system. Do you see the quick release that he has in that RPO system?
“And there is one thing that I said this last offseason, as we were getting ready for the year and we talked about Indiana. I said, ‘The one benefit of the doubt that I will give Curt Cignetti is that he knew and went after and wanted Kurtis Rourke and got him because he felt like he would be a perfect fit for this system.’ Now, he went out and chose Mendoza. We probably should have known that Cignetti knew what he was doing.”
Mendoza has been one of the best quarterbacks in the nation through the first month of the season, and his performance Saturday night led Klatt to believe he should be considered a Heisman Trophy contender. He completed 21 of 23 passes for 267 yards and five touchdowns against a top-10 Illinois team.
On the season, Mendoza has completed 76.8% of his passes for 975 yards, 14 touchdowns and zero interceptions. When you add Mendoza’s two rushing touchdowns, no player in FBS has accounted for more total touchdowns (16) than Indiana’s quarterback. As a result, Mendoza is well on pace to put up better numbers than Rourke did in 2024 (3,042 passing yards, 31 total touchdowns).
Is Indiana a better team than last year’s team that made the CFP?
Indiana’s improvements don’t end at quarterback, either.
“They were dominant on the line of scrimmage on both sides, Klatt said. “This was something that I didn’t think was going to improve from last year, and it wasn’t necessarily a strength last year. And yet, it’s gotten better.
“They ran it for over 300 yards on Illinois. They sacked Luke Altmyer seven times, so they were dominant on both lines of scrimmage. They were active.”
As Klatt said, Indiana was dominant in the run game on Saturday. Both running backs, Khobie Martin and Kaelon Black, rushed for 8.9 yards per carry against Illinois, with Martin going for 107 yards and two touchdowns while Black had 89 rushing yards and a score. Through four games, Indiana has four running backs with over 200 rushing yards, and each of them has rushed for over 5.0 yards per carry. In fact, three of them have rushed for at least 7.0 yards per carry, with Black leading the way as he has 306 rushing yards on 7.0 yards per carry.
The Hoosiers only gave up two sacks on Saturday, while Mendoza has only been sacked three times this season. Indiana’s offensive line only allowed three pressures against Illinois as well, while only surrendering 13 pressures throughout the entire season, per Pro Football Focus.
Defensively, Indiana has three players tied for 23rd in the nation in sacks (Tyrique Tucker, Mario Landino, Isaiah Jones), with each recording three sacks so far. That’s already more than last year, when only two Hoosiers reached the three-sack mark all season. Indiana’s 15 sacks rank just one shy of the national lead.
Tyrique Tucker (No. 95) and Mikail Kamara (No. 6) have helped Indiana form one of the best pass rushes in the nation. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
That strong defensive front has helped Indiana rank third in total defense (205.8 yards per game) and fifth in scoring defense (8.3 points per game). Those numbers will probably drop as the Hoosiers enter Big Ten play, but Klatt isn’t expecting a dramatic difference.
“Indiana was the center of the college football world for 3.5 hours on Saturday, and that’s awesome,” Klatt said. “I was dead wrong about Indiana. I said Indiana is not as good as they were a year ago, and at least with that performance Saturday night, they’re better. There were some things that I had question marks about, and with their level of competition that they have played [before Saturday], I assumed that these query marks have been substantial.
“Each a part of this program has gotten higher.”
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