Coming into the 2024 college football season, there were no shortage of games on the Big Ten schedule that one could've envisioned as top-5 matchups. Ohio State's visits to Oregon in early October and then Penn State in early November delivered, but matchups between Michigan and USC, USC and Penn State, and as has been the case recently, even Michigan and Ohio State looked like games that could've received this billing. Notice that the Indiana Hoosiers were nowhere in this mix.

That's because this Hoosiers squad didn't enter the season ranked. In fact, Indiana finished 17th out of 18 teams in the Big Ten preseason poll, with only the Purdue Boilermakers expected to finish behind them. Even the biggest optimist in the Hoosier State couldn't have imagined that a November 23rd game against Ohio State would be a top-5 matchup, because that would likely mean that the Indiana football program would've done something they've never done — win ten games in a season.

But that's exactly what Curt Cignetti's squad has done in the 63-year-old's first season in Bloomington.

The Hoosiers are a perfect 10-0, one of only three undefeated teams left standing along with the top-ranked Oregon Ducks, who survived a scare at Wisconsin on Saturday night, and the Army Black Knights, who will face the 6th-ranked Notre Dame Fighting Irish at Yankee Stadium this Saturday in what would've been the biggest game of the weekend if it weren't for a top-5 matchup between Indiana and Ohio State that only Curt Cignetti could've seen coming.

Curt Cignetti calls shot, has Indiana on the brink of Big Ten Title Game 

Indiana's newly announced head coach of football Curt Cignetti speaks to the media on Friday, Dec. 1, 2023.
© Rich Janzaruk/Herald-Times / USA TODAY NETWORK
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When Curt Cignetti was introduced to the media as the new head coach of the Indiana Hoosiers back in December 2023, he made waves when he boldly proclaimed that his football team — which again, had never won ten games in a single college football season — would be playing in the Big Ten Title Game in one year's time.

Now again, based on preseason expectations, this would've been a bold statement if Indiana were playing in the MAC conference. But in the more-loaded-than-ever Big Ten, it just seemed nuts. But it turns out, Cignetti knew something that none of us did… he was going to be able to overhaul this dormant football program before a Google search could clue you in that this guy wins at every stop.

No, Indiana has not gotten there yet. They need to defeat Ohio State on Saturday afternoon and then avoid a letdown in the final game of the regular season against in-state rival Purdue in order to clinch their spot in the Big Ten Championship.

Even if Indiana comes up short in what is without question the biggest game in program history this Saturday in Columbus, Cignetti has already proven that the Hoosiers made the right call to bet on him, because not in anyone's wildest dreams would the words ‘top-5 matchup' and ‘Indiana Hoosiers' ever have been paired together.