INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana coach Curt Cignetti has been here before. Twice, actually.
His second-ranked Hoosiers, just like No. 1 Ohio State, have not.
For the first time in more than a decade and just the third time since conference championship games became standard in the Football Bowl Subdivision, the nation’s top-ranked teams will meet with a league title on the line.
The two previous 1-2 matchups in title games were in the Southeastern Conference in the 2008-09 seasons, when Alabama and Florida faced off twice in a row.
Cignetti was on Nick Saban’s Alabama staff back then, and yes, experience could matter when Indiana and Ryan Day’s Buckeyes — the reigning national champions — collide in a pairing of 12-0 teams at 8 p.m. Saturday at Lucas Oil Stadium, the home of the NFL’s Indianapolis Colts.
“I had the opportunity to be part of a couple of those at Alabama when we played Florida and (quarterback Tim) Tebow and (coach) Urban (Meyer) two years in a row. It’s going to be a great atmosphere. I think — no, I know — you’re playing this game for a reason. A Big Ten championship means an awful lot.”
The Buckeyes and the Hoosiers are in similar positions right now. Both teams are playoff locks, with good chances at a first-round bye no matter what happens this weekend, but the historical contrast between these programs couldn’t be starker.
Ohio State claims nine national championships, is closing in on the program’s 1,000th victory and won at least three Big Ten crowns in every decade from the 1930s through the 2010s. They also lead the all-time series with Indiana 81-12-5.
Despite the steady parade of players from Columbus to the NFL, though, the Buckeyes watched the past four league title games from home — a drought that coincided with their four-game losing streak to border rival Michigan. That streak ended last weekend, and now they hope to fulfill another preseason goal by hoisting their first Big Ten trophy in five years.
“We’re excited we put ourselves in a position to have a chance to play for the Big Ten championship,” said junior safety Caleb Downs, an All-American last season. “We’re going to go at it with a lot of energy and put everything into it this week and then go play as well as we can Saturday.”
As a program, the Hoosiers are still newcomers to the big stage, which they’ve stepped onto since Cignetti was hired ahead of the 2024 season.
They made the first 12-team CFP last year after an 11-1 regular season (with the lone loss at Ohio State) — although they quickly exited with a 27-17 loss in the first round at Notre Dame, which reached the CFP final against the Buckeyes — finally shed the label of the all-time losses leader among FBS programs last month when fellow Big Ten program Northwestern took over the dubious distinction, then completed the first perfect regular season in school history.
Now they’re seeking the program’s third Big Ten title. The first came in 1945 and the second in 1967, leaving Indiana tied with Minnesota for the conference’s longest active drought.
Indiana has an experienced roster with key players who have played for championships in previous stops and, oh yeah, Cignetti. He experienced both a win and a loss in those 1-2 pairings in the SEC title games as the second-ranked team won each time; Florida beat Alabama 31-20 in 2008, while the Crimson Tide defeated the Gators 32-13 a year later.
The Hoosiers also can rely on the lessons learned from their only losses last season.
“We fell short in the moment,” linebacker Aiden Fisher said while reflecting on the 2024 games against Ohio State and Notre Dame. “Coach Cignetti said it kind of got a little too big for us, and I think we went in with too much of an underdog mentality. This year, every single game we’ve been in, there’s been no doubt at all. It’s never crept in that, ‘Oh, we might lose this game.'”
There’s no reason to change that philosophy now in a contest that features the nation’s two stingiest scoring defenses, two of the nation’s top-15 scoring offenses, the nation’s two most efficient quarterbacks and major college football’s last two unbeaten teams.
“I don’t expect any handouts,” Cignetti said. “We’ve earned everything up to this point, and we’ve got to earn it on Saturday.”
About those quarterbacks: Indiana redshirt junior Fernando Mendoza and Ohio State redshirt sophomore Julian Sayin are going head to head as top Heisman Trophy contenders. Some believe this game could determine the award winner.
Though neither side wanted to talk about the race, there is some mutual admiration between the two.
“Julian Sayin and I never officially met, however, through high school we used a similar quarterback coach,” Mendoza said. “And this year we had a lot of overlap games, and we were able to watch their film. I really respect Julian, he is effective and he fits the offense perfectly.”