Indiana football’s biggest fuel is making a run for the CFP national championship

ATLANTA — Everywhere you turned, they were there.

At your hotel reception. Walking the streets of Atlanta. At your favorite restaurant or bar.

Inside Gibney’s Pub on the eve of the Peach Bowl, it was a red-hot take. Decked out in their favorite red gear, Indiana fans packed the bar to watch the Fiesta Bowl between Ole Miss and Miami. There was no Oregon fan.

They gave a big cheer to Ole Miss, letting out their famous “Hoo Hoo Hoosiers”! chant whenever the Rebels do anything successful on the field. And even though Ole Miss lost, there was an excitement for this Indiana fan base that has been absent for some time in recent playoff games, especially with traditional powerhouses.

That was just a preview of what was to come the following night inside the Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Indiana fans outnumbered Oregon fans by at least 4 to 1 in what turned out to be a 56-22 victory to send the Hoosiers to the College Football Playoff national championship game. After it was over, Indiana coach Curt Cignetti lamented, “There’s nothing like having a home semifinal.”

Even Indiana wasn’t sure what to expect before the game. Their rabid fans had already taken over the Rose Bowl, but there were concerns early on that Oregon would go down well. Indiana even practiced counting silently in case opposing fans made noise in Atlanta, according to left-hander Carter Smith, which Indiana had to do against Oregon in its first 30-20 win. As Cignetti pointed out after the game, Indiana had seven previous penalties in that game trying to deal with the noise. There was no leaving that chance of a national title game appearance on the line.

With crimson all over Benz, creating what could be a 90/10 split against Oregon fans, any need to count quietly went out the window.

“Not saying anything because Hoosier Nation is here and keeping them quiet is a huge aspect of the game and an offensive performance that doesn’t get talked about enough,” Indiana linebacker Fernando Mendoza said. “Shout out to the Hoosier Nation because keeping the score quiet, especially against the Ducks, is always difficult and keeping the other team quiet may cost them some points.”

Smith said: “I love the Hoosier Nation. They rally us very well, they travel very well for us.”

The noise seems to concern Oregon quarterback Dante Moore. He threw a pick-six in Oregon’s first game, and it hasn’t gotten much better since. It was deafening in the stadium when D’Angelo Ponds returned that fumble to give Indiana a 7-0 lead just 11 seconds into the game. Moore had three total turnovers, seemingly overwhelmed by the Indiana defense and its raucous fans.

Inside the pick-six game that started Indiana’s destruction of Oregon in the CFP semifinals.

John Talty

Questions on many minds: How exactly does Indiana do this?

If you didn’t know before, you are definitely now Indiana’s largest alumni base (more than 800,000 worldwide). There are Indiana fans across the country, but many have been dormant as the Hoosiers football program wallows in decades of loss and dysfunction. They needed a call to action, a reason to believe that the financial investment in IU football was worth it.

Enter Cignetti and his famous “I win. Google me” confidence that almost immediately changed the attitudes of the fans. The dramatic win that followed inspired more investment, both financial and emotional, from fans who cared more about basketball. It all came together on this special 2025 Indiana team that featured Cignetti, Heisman Trophy-winning linebacker Fernando Mendoza and a defense that has overwhelmed every opponent so far. It felt like after all of Indiana’s wins, it opened up another part of the fanbase that never believed this kind of run was possible for the Hoosiers.

“Watching so many people enjoy Indiana football is really amazing,” said Galen Clavio, host of the CrimsonCast podcast, “but I think it’s because of how unique this story is. What Curt Cignetti and his staff and players have done in creating not only a great story with all these unique elements but being a great team has made the fans almost Beatlemania.”

A sign of the changing times: The most packed Assembly Hall this year — so far, at least — will be Monday’s title game viewing party. The tickets for this event were sold out within two hours of being received.

Clavio, who also serves as director of IU’s National Sports Journalism Center, has made trips to the Rose Bowl and Peach Bowl, and plans to be in Miami for the national championship. The former Indiana student says he’s been to every Indiana bowl game in the past 20 years except for one, and there’s been a strong fan following along the way. But there’s nothing like this, when IU fans upset Alabama and Oregon fans on college football’s biggest stage.

It wasn’t cheap for Indiana fans to do so. If you’ve made the trip to the Big Ten tournament, the Rose Bowl and the Peach Bowl you’ve already spent thousands of dollars on airfare, lodging and tickets. It will be more expensive to get into Hard Rock Stadium on Monday with the cheapest tickets available for sale through third-party sellers like StubHub for around $2,700.

But there’s something new about it all that feels special to Indiana fans. After all, this was the worst team in FBS history before Cignetti took over. The program had not won a bowl game since 1991 when Bill Mallory’s Hoosiers beat Baylor in the Copper Bowl.

“We’re hungry and we like to be the underdog,” alumnus and billionaire booster Mark Cuban told CBS Sports at the Peach Bowl. “We’ve never seen this before, so I think everybody wanted to come out and see what it was like. Now they know. We’ve got another one.”

As someone remarked to Clavio, “We’ve been saving up for a football trip for 30 years and didn’t realize it.”

“People make the decision to do it because of the opportunity to be a part of something really historic,” Clavio said. “I think that’s what this team has done. We’ve created a place where people feel like it’s history. This is something I’ll remember for the rest of my life.

“That’s what happens with people at Indiana, maybe more than people from other schools. There’s such a connection to the university, there’s such a connection to the sports programs that are here that people want to feel like they’re a part of it.”

Miami will be the final litmus test for Indiana a fanbase that has defeated its enemy everywhere it goes. The Hoosiers have a larger alumni base than private school Miami, but a home game makes it easy for Hurricanes fans to spend more on tickets without worrying about airfare and hotel fees. That the game features a hometown Miami coach in Mario Cristobal and a Miami native Heisman winner in Mendoza adds to the interest.

Count this Indiana fan base at your peril, though. Said Clario, “I wouldn’t be shocked if Indiana had as many, or more, in the stands.”

Indiana fans are everywhere, and the red tide is about to overtake Miami next.