Next Up for Huskies Is Indiana, Which Looks Scary Good

The Hoosiers hammered Nebraska 56-7 on Saturday at home.

Indiana coach Curt Cignetti looks on from the sidelines in a game against Northwestern. / David Banks-Imagn Images

Who said there is no I in team?

Indiana remained the most talked-about story in college football on Saturday afternoon as the unbeaten Hoosiers warmed up for a home game against Washington by pulverizing previously once-beaten Nebraska 56-7 before a sellout crowd in Bloomington, Indiana, and a FOX TV national audience.

"We kind of broke their will," new Indiana coach Curt Cignetti said in the postgame. "But we're not the '76 Steelers."

Ah, but they are so much better than the typical Indiana team, now sporting a spotless 7-0 record and 4-0 in conference play and acting as if Michael Penix Jr. was back in town, as healthy as ever and taking the quarterback snaps with his former team.

These Hoosiers still haven't trailed on the scoreboard this season, now having gone 28 quarters without staring at any sort of deficit.

The 49-point win over a decent Nebraska team (5-2, 2-2) tied Indiana's biggest margin of victory over a Big Ten opponent in school history.

While the Huskies (4-3, 2-2) took Saturday off during their bye week, coach Jedd Fisch would have been smart had he instructed his team not to watch this game. The UW and Indiana meet next Saturday with a 9 a.m. PST kickoff at Indiana.

It appears to be a daunting task for Fisch's team, which has lost its previous conference road games at Rutgers 21-18 and at Iowa 40-16 while traveling multiple time zones.

Indiana looks like Ohio State in all facets of the game. The Hoosiers average more than 200 yards rushing and 300 yards passing per game.

"This is not a fluke," said Urban Meyer, former Ohio State, Florida and Utah coach and FOX college football analyst. "This is a really, really good football team."

The Hoosiers have emerged from a down-trodden 3-9 season that brought about a coaching change from Tom Allen, Penix's coach before he transferred to the UW, to Cignetti, who moved up from James Madison to send everyone into a frenzy with his dominant Indiana coaching debut.

Cignetti, a confident and entertaining football leader, brought 13 players with him from his 11-2 Sun Belt team, signed 27 players out of the transfer portal overall and has used all of these newcomers for 80 starts.

"Google it, I win," Cignetti said.

Fisch would be best advised to keep his Huskies off the Internet, too.

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