Ryan Day’s postgame reaction to missed field goal in Ohio State vs. Indiana
The Ohio State University football team missed a potentially game-winning 27-yard field goal with less than three minutes left in the Big Ten Championship game against Indiana.
INDIANAPOLIS — Noise is exhausting. A landslide into the deep, dark depths of scheduling and head-to-head intensity creates daily chaos.
Now, let’s take a breather, even just long enough to enjoy this century’s college football story.
“It’s like a dream, a great dream,” Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza said.
It continues to improve and it won’t stop anytime soon.
Stop complaining about the College Football Playoff. Forget Notre Dame, Miami, Alabama, and all the other blue bloods trying to justify the CFP’s flaws.
Indiana University has long been on the fringes of the college football world, the biggest and worst team on the block, at the bottom with more losses than any team in the history of the sport.
It sounds completely ridiculous to even say that.
“For those who doubted Indiana, this was the last thing that needed to be proven,” Indiana linebacker Isaiah Jones said.
And wouldn’t you know it, in the biggest moment of the last two years of transformation, there was no question that the No. 2 Hoosiers pulled off a nail-biting 13-10 victory over defending national champion and No. 1 Ohio State in Saturday night’s Big Ten Championship Game.
A victory so complete and program-defining that the enormity of the moment will reverberate throughout the sport. It wasn’t just a win, it was a stark reminder of the unthinkable reality that the worst program in sports history had completely turned around in just two seasons.
Indiana hadn’t beaten Ohio State since 1988 and was on a 32-game winless streak (with one tie), but won with everything on the line: an undefeated regular season, a conference championship, the No. 1 seed in the CFP, and the Heisman Trophy.
And one more thing: Indiana will play in the Rose Bowl in the CFP quarterfinals after a first-round bye. The Hoosiers haven’t experienced a “grandfather” since 1968, when O.J. Simpson led USC to a 14-3 victory.
That’s how long this program has been in the hinterland of college football, how Indiana football has always been an opportunity for students to party in half-empty stadiums and alumni to kill time before basketball season.
“This is another step we need to take as a program,” Indiana University coach Curt Cignetti said. As you know, this impossible turnaround is far from over.
The coach who sat in his 2024 inaugural press conference and declared, “I’m going to win, Google me,” spent his first season at IU saying outlandish and outrageous things because the program needed traction, and who continues to win 24 of his first 26 games and set a school record in every game, knows there’s more on the horizon.
Rose Bowl quarterfinals. Fiesta Bowl semifinals. The US Championship game was held in Miami.
National inversion championship match. God, what kind of world do we live in?
Indiana has the best quarterback in college football, a world in which Mendoza leaves California and has offers from Georgia and Miami. And I chose Cignetti and the Hoosiers.
“Because he wins and because he makes me a better player,” Mendoza said.
It was Mendoza throwing a perfect 50-on-50 ball with a back shoulder to Elijah Surratt for IU’s only touchdown and eventual game-winning point, and a deep ball to Charlie Becker in the fourth quarter that effectively clinched the victory.
“I looked up and it was there,” Becker said. “It’s an unreal pitch.”
The best defense in college football in the world is in Bloomington. Holy Bobby Knight, defense In Indiana.
Once upon a time, Hoosiers coach Lee Corso called a timeout in the first quarter of a game against Ohio State when he was leading 7-0. I told the team to come onto the field to take a team photo.
They lost the game 49-7.
This time, Indiana held Ohio State’s powerful offense (which features not one but two Heisman candidates in quarterback Julian Sane and wide receiver Jeremiah Smith) to 322 yards. The defense tormented the Sanes all night, recording five sacks, nine tackles for loss, and one interception.
Indiana has given up 60 points in its last six games and 55 points in its four biggest games of the season (Illinois, Iowa, Oregon and Ohio State).
“We always tell each other, if they don’t score, we win,” said IU linebacker Lolijah Hardy, who completed a fourth-down pass in the Indiana end zone late in the fourth quarter as the Hoosiers held on to a precarious three-point lead. “They couldn’t score there. No way.”
That’s the world Cignetti arrived in Indiana and knew he had to turn the roster around. He didn’t boast about bringing in Gucci, he just brought in the core players who had previously turned around James Madison, and then added more players from the transfer portal.
He won 11 games in 2024, had the participation and investment of the nation’s largest alumni base (over 800,000 people), and suddenly the NIL money started flowing. And next thing you know, Indiana has an elite quarterback.
They then defeated Illinois State by 53 points, followed by a big road win at Oregon State and defeated rival Purdue by 53 points to create the biggest game in school history. Immediately after last week’s game, Cignetti walked into the cramped locker room at Ross-Ade Stadium in West Lafayette, Indiana, and said there were too many mistakes.
You cannot continue playing like that for the rest of the period.
“Coach Sigg preaches to us over and over again, just be your best self,” IU linebacker Aiden Fisher said. “That’s why this team stands up when it matters most.”
Long after the celebration took place in front of a sold-out crowd at Lucas Oil Stadium, John Mellencamp’s “Small Town” blared throughout the venue after Indiana won its first Big Ten championship in nearly 60 years.
“I’ve seen everything in a small town, experienced a ball in a small town…”
Mendoza fled the stage in the middle of the field and ended up in the back of the stadium outside of Indiana’s locker room. There, a large but eccentric crowd of about 20 Mendoza natives who had traveled from Miami gathered to celebrate like never before.
Mendoza’s mother, Elsa, who battles multiple sclerosis, was there in a wheelchair during the celebration. Fernando Mendoza wrapped his bloody arm around his mother, leaned over and whispered in her ear.
They hugged, cried, smiled, and laughed.
Elsa watched as her son took a big hit on the first play of the game, lay motionless on the grass for 20 seconds, then slowly walked off the field. He returned one play later and delivered the best win over the worst program in college football.
“To the Bloomington community, how long have you waited for this?” Mendoza said. “My mom and family made the long trip from Miami. It just meant the world to me.”
The story of the century.
And it’s not over yet.
Matt Hayes is a senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X @MattHayesCFB.
