I was in the marching band when my high school football team lost 38-0 on a rainy Friday night in 2019. We played the somber slowed-down version of our fight song as we trudged out of the stands following the loss. It was miserable — as Michigan High School Athletic Association Division 3 football often is.
One can only imagine that a similar feeling was shared by Indiana State University’s football team following a — albeit less rainy — 73-0 loss to Indiana Friday night at Memorial Stadium in Bloomington.
“We accomplished what we wanted to accomplish tonight,” head coach Curt Cignetti said postgame. “I expected us to have a dominant performance, and we did.”
Attempting to describe the Hoosiers’ performance with statistics would be a disservice to the sheer domination that took place. But here are some anyway.
Indiana outgained the Sycamores 680 total yards to 77. Redshirt junior quarterback Fernando Mendoza didn’t record his only incompletion of the game until his 15th pass attempt. His final stat line was 19 of 20 for 270 and six total touchdowns. That wasn’t even Indiana’s best offensive performance of the night.
Redshirt junior wide receiver Omar Cooper Jr. had a career-high 10 catches for a career-high 207 yards and a career-high four touchdowns. You could say he had a career night.
I could go on and on, so I will.
The Hoosiers defense didn’t allow a first down until five minutes were left in the second quarter. Defensive coordinator Bryant Haines’ unit tallied 16 tackles for loss that set Indiana State back a combined 58 yards. The Sycamores entered halftime with 10 total yards.
Indiana was always going to win. It was clear from the jump.
That’s not to say I was never on the edge of my seat. In the closing seconds of the second quarter, a note card — possibly dropped from the top of the press box — fluttered in front of my wandering vision. I watched in disbelief as it seemingly levitated in a spin reminiscent of an Olympic figure skater before beginning its descent to the Hoosier faithful below. That was pretty cool.
Anyways.
With the first half concluded, many of the 46,219 fans in attendance believed Indiana’s 45-0 first half lead would be just enough to scrape out a win and opted to leave Memorial Stadium to enjoy the niceties of a night out on Kirkwood Avenue. Many, but not all.
A few higher rows of the student section were left with just one dedicated tuition-paying scholar reveling in the Sycamore’s misery. In an attempt to quench my curiosity, I left my comfortable press box seat and ventured into the depths of Memorial Stadium to ask why.
“I love this team,” one fan said.
Before I could ask for an explanation, redshirt freshman quarterback Alberto Mendoza completed a 58-yard touchdown pass to Cooper putting Indiana up 52-0. Deciding my follow up question had just been answered, I moved on.
I caught up with a group of three gentlemen who expressed their keen interest in the Hoosiers’ scoring 61 points. On an unrelated note, the over/under for Friday night’s matchup was set at 60.5 points, according to ESPN Bet Sportsbook.
In a weak moment of reminiscence, I managed to get a question to a member of the Marching Hundred.
“Do you get sick of playing the fight song?” I asked, a hardship I never experienced in my high school percussion days.
“Never,” the base drummer said.
As I walked around the concourse, I took note of the few Indiana State fans in attendance. One such fan — a young man no older than 10 — had a pair of headphones and a Kindle-like device clutched in his hands. For his sake, I can only hope the volume was loud enough to drown out the public address announcer’s endless reads of Indiana touchdown scores.
Jokes aside, I did pity the few Sycamore supporters in attendance. Indiana never took its foot off the gas.
Sure, Cignetti didn’t waste much time in the second half before bringing in second and ultimately third string players. Yes, the Hoosiers began churning down the clock with the run game. But still, Indiana’s players were focused, unrelenting and playing to win from the first snap to the last.
“We wanted to play one play at a time like it was a game on the line, regardless of the competitive circumstances,” Cignetti said during his postgame press conference.
By the time the Hoosiers scored their 10th and final touchdown, a small contingency of students in section 21 on the northeast corner of the stadium had understandably lost focus and turned their attention to a new mission — getting the on-field security guard to celebrate with them. He did.
Their excitement was short-lived. Moments later the Sycamores ran their last play, the clock struck zero and Indiana’s marching band gave an encore by playing its fight song one final time. In an unsurprising turn of events, a Friday night football game wasn’t all that interesting.
Indiana, 73. Indiana State, 0.
Follow reporters Dalton James (@DaltonMJames and jamesdm@iu.edu) and Conor Banks (@Conorbanks06 and conbanks@iu.edu) and columnist Quinn Richards (@Quinn_richa and qmrichar@iu.edu) for updates throughout the Indiana football season.
