Indiana is the real deal – it’s time for the college football world to take notice

Indiana used one of college football’s biggest stages – “Big Noon Kickoff” – and the opportunity to face one of the sport’s biggest brand teams, Nebraska, to make its presence known. Not as a Cinderella story. Leave the glass slippers in the closet. Not as a feel-good tonic in a sport where there is constant change. Cook your “chicken soup for the soul” for someone who needs it – like Nebraska.

Indiana wants to be known nationally as one of the top 12 teams in the country. And after the Curt Cignetti-led Hoosiers’ 56-7 loss to Nebraska on Saturday afternoon in Bloomington, Indiana, it’s time for the country to take this Indiana team seriously. The excuses we would use to keep a team like Indiana out of the playoff conversation are being cut away like a field full of Nebraska-grown corn.

Hadn’t Indiana beaten a team with a winning record? Toast.

Nebraska hadn’t allowed a single rushing touchdown in the first half of the season? Gone. The Hoosiers scored two touchdowns on the ground in the first half alone.

Nebraska entered Memorial Stadium in Bloomington ranked among the top ten teams in the country in scoring defense (11 points per game). And then, quite simply, Indiana scored 28 points in the first half, 21 of them in the second quarter alone, and 56 total points (yes, 56!) in one of the most dominant offensive performances we’ve ever seen in Big Ten play this season.

And now that we’ve established the Hoosiers as legitimate contenders for the College Football Playoff and the Big Ten title, we must recognize the individual brilliance of Kurtis Rourke and Elijah Sarratt.

We need to talk about Rourke the way we talk about Oregon’s Dillon Gabriel. The Hoosiers’ senior signalman, who arrived in Bloomington this offseason after spending the last five years at Ohio University, was nothing short of brilliant throughout the month of October. Rourke uses token motion, true RPO, better than anyone in sports to identify the weakness in every coverage he sees post-snap. He started Saturday’s game going 8 of 8 through the air and finished the day going 17 of 21 for 189 yards with a touchdown and an interception that came on a Hail Mary to end the first half.

Rourke did not play in the second half after suffering an apparent hand injury. He was replaced by Redshift sophomore Tayven Jackson. But as Jimmy Johnson once said, backups also want to score. And that’s exactly what Jackson did. He threw a dime to Sarrett to extend the lead to 42-7 before the end of the third quarter and finished the game 7 of 8 for 91 yards and two passes.

Sarratt, who accounted for 1,191 receiving yards at James Madison last year, caught three passes for 65 yards and a touchdown in the win. In the first half, Sarratt and Omar Cooper helped produce an 88-yard drive in six plays, proving that this offense can explode.

With Indiana now sitting atop the Big Ten standings at 7-0, there is little doubt that Indiana is capable of competing at the top of one of the sport’s premier conferences. The only question that remains is when will the rest of the traditionalists and glorified glaziers start recognizing Indiana the way they do Penn State and Oregon? It’s a trick question: you’re already too late.

But for Nebraska? More pain.

Not only have the Huskers lost 26 straight times to ranked opponents since 2016, but they are now 0-5 in the Matt Rhule era, when a win would give them bowl eligibility. This 26-game losing streak against top-25 teams is the second-longest active streak among power conference programs. Only Rutgers has lost more consecutive games to top-25 teams.

It’s back to the drawing board for Nebraska, now 5-2, with a game next up against No. 4 Ohio State – another matchup with bowl eligibility on the line. Meanwhile, Indiana welcomes Washington to Bloomington with a chance to improve to 8-0 and get off to its best start in program history.

These are the stakes. That’s what it means to play great football. Indiana is a big boy. And it’s their time.

RJ Young is a national college football writer and analyst for FOX Sports and host of The Number One College Football Show podcast. Follow him at @RJ_Young.

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