COLLEGE PARK, Md. – Word got around here, late in the week, that Maryland finally sold out its homecoming game.
It came as a minor surprise. Good tickets remained available as recently as Monday. Mike Locksley’s Terrapins were in the midst of another midseason slump, an unfortunately common feature of his tenure, and yet, by Saturday morning, all seats were accounted for.
The alumni base recently declared America’s largest — with healthy representation in major metropolitan areas up and down the Atlantic seaboard — arrived in force. From D.C., New York and Philadelphia, Indiana football fans made their presence felt in yet another road environment.
The several thousand fans wearing Indiana crimson that stayed through all four quarters of a 55-10 blowout win Saturday roared, as Curt Cignetti led his Hoosiers (9-0, 6-0 Big Ten) off the field. They cheered for a team they’ve come to love, one so deeply motivated by its ambitions and so completely bought into Cignetti’s relentless fight for focus that seemingly nothing can break its stride.
“Every single week,” Mikail Kamara said, “we’ve got to make sure there’s no doubt left, at all.”
There could be none remaining, as Indiana strode off into the cool Maryland night having bulldozed its way through another blowout win.
The nation’s leader in margin of victory heading into this weekend will only have improved on that number. This time the methods were different, because the opponent was different and so the challenge was different.
But the result was the same.
Indiana’s defense dominates Maryland
Indiana could have been forgiven a lull. Surely this brand of winning gets boring, or repetitive, or numbing. Kamara’s words, like his team’s performances, suggest otherwise.
Fernando Mendoza (14-of-21 passing, 225 total yards, two touchdowns) started slowly, and so did his offense. Mendoza’s lone interception ended IU’s first drive, and a sack doomed the Hoosiers’ second.
So Bryant Haines’ defense went to work on Malik Washington, the promising but inexperienced freshman Maryland (4-4, 1-4) lines up behind center. Washington has played beyond his years at times this season, helped by offensive coordinator Pep Hamilton’s ability to simplify and smooth for his young quarterback.
Hamilton could do nothing for his freshman QB this day, other than a reassuring arm around the shoulder afterward, and the promise most days aren’t this hard.
Because most defenses aren’t this good. Indiana finished allowing just 293 yards, a healthy chunk of those gained long after the result was beyond doubt.
The Hoosiers flipped their own script — finishing with no sacks and just three tackles for loss, they instead turned Maryland over five times.
That’s as many turnovers as Locksley’s team had committed all season before Saturday.
“The defense has, all year long, risen to the occasion when their backs are against the wall,” Cignetti said. “It wasn’t perfect tonight defensively, trust me. … But there’s a lot of good things there on tape.”
OK, so maybe it wouldn’t be Washington’s arm, or Mendoza’s slow start, or the turnover differential that untracked the freight train this team has become.
Injuries don’t slow down Indiana football
Maybe injuries would do the trick.
Aiden Fisher watched from the sideline.
Drew Evans was a surprise absence, with Cignetti suggesting his starting left guard could miss several weeks.
In the game itself, IU lost Elijah Sarratt (hamstring) and Kaiden Turner (calf), and helped Kahlil Benson (ankle/foot) play his way through pain until his efforts were no longer required.
Surely, between a starting lineman, a linebacker captain and the Hoosiers’ leading receiver, the sheer weight of injuries would affect this team’s performance. Not a chance.
“It’s just the trust we have in each other,” Mendoza said. “We know we have each other’s backs, and it’s one group going toward one goal.”
Maryland, Mendoza said, responded to Sarratt’s departure (and Indiana’s high-flying pass game) by committing to coverage and refusing to lose the game in the air. Indiana just made the Terrapins lose it on the ground.
IU’s 367 yards rushing were the most in a game since the fan-favorite Bacon And Legs win over Maryland in 2016. Three different backs ran for at least 80 yards, and four different Hoosiers (including Mendoza) rushed for a touchdown.
Backup (and little brother) Alberto Mendoza’s 53-yard run in the fourth quarter, the Hoosiers’ longest of the day, tacked one final flourish onto a signature afternoon. Everyone contributed to another remarkable performance, and so everyone shared at least a little bit of the credit.
“From my standpoint,” Cignetti said, “the thing I’m most proud of is the way they listen to the message about playing one play at a time, regardless of the circumstances.”
Cignetti will sweat some of those injuries. Indiana — like most teams in the transfer portal era — doesn’t have the depth to keep replacing starters.
There’s every chance, though, IU sees some of those important absent faces back on the field in a week in State College. And there’s just as much chance it won’t matter either way.
Cignetti spends his days, weeks, months and years preaching this unflinching focus, and the cold, ruthless dominance that follows. Never in his (admittedly brief) Indiana tenure has his team delivered performances that so clearly mastered his command.
“No matter if we’re up 10 at halftime, or we’re up 30 in the fourth quarter, we’re going to keep on swinging,” Mendoza said, “keep giving our best shot, because that’s what the present moment deserves, and that’s what we deserve as a football team.”
The relentlessness with which his team wins football games is what puts all the sport’s biggest prizes in front of this team now. At some point, we might find an opponent or an obstacle that can break this Indiana team’s unrelenting forward progress, but it’s going to take something remarkable to do it.
Zach Osterman covers the Hoosiers for IndyStar, part of the USA TODAY Network. Want more Hoosiers coverage? Sign up for IndyStar’s Hoosiers newsletter.
