‘We certainly made a statement again’: IU football caps off historic regular season, leaving little doubt about College Football Playoff standing

Curt Cignetti and IU football didn’t want to leave any doubt in the College Football Playoff Committee’s minds on Saturday, and the 66-0 win over Purdue left another strong impression with the country.

Is it enough to keep Indiana in the playoff? After moving to 11-1 on the season, Cignetti certainly likes his team’s chances.

“We certainly made a statement again,” Cignetti said following the win. “Can’t say enough about what this team, you know, has done between the white lines. But they are not satisfied. They are not done yet. You know, they are not. They want more. They are going to get more.”

Indiana’s 66-point margin of victory was the the most in the Indiana-Purdue rivalry, as well as the most against an FBS opponent in program history. It was in dominating fashion which Indiana finished its regal season.

“I think we had the largest margin of victory of any team in the country up until last week,” Cignetti said. “I’m not sure where we were coming into this game because obviously we did not beat Ohio State … What I would say is, most of the games we played with — we’ve handled the opponent pretty well or we wouldn’t have the largest margin of victory in the country.”

Purdue was held to just 67 yards of total offense — the fewest yards of total offense IU football has allowed since 1958.

Saturday’s margin of victory was also the fifth time this year IU has was by at least 30 points. That tied a program record from 1917.

In a world where style points matter, Cignetti understands you need to do everything — and more — to show just how good your team is. Saturday was no different.

“Obviously style points are important this time of year, right,” Cignetti said. “Style points of earned. But more than anything else, we wanted to play from the first play to the last play in a rivalry game that Indiana had not won in four or five years.”

While Saturday’s win over Purdue put the exclamation point on the regular season that Cignetti was looking for, it was also a culmination of everything that went into the past 12 months.

It was also a moment that Cignetti thought was possible with IU football, winning double-digit games and making a deep run at the end of the year, when nobody else did. And he envisioned it from day one.

“My wife will tell you that the night I accepted the (Indiana) job, we were laying in bed, and I said, ‘Look at this schedule, there’s 10 wins on this schedule.’ And, of course, at that point I was sort of hedging whether to stay or come,” Cignetti said. “Then Scott (Dolson) called ten minutes later and told me I was the next head coach at Indiana. And I said, ‘Okay.’ And he said, ‘We’re going to shock the world.’ And I said, ‘Right, we are.’”

They did — and there’s still more to be done.

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