Why Indiana football can't look past spiraling Penn State, where it has never won
The Hoosiers of old would be staring at a talented Penn State team and raucous crowd. Just because Curt Cignetti has elevated IU doesn't mean he isn't concerned.
BLOOMINGTON — The arrival this week of the College Football Playoff committee’s first rankings served as a reminder that the end of the regular season will soon come into view.
For frontrunners, contenders and hopefuls alike, the stakes grow higher each passing Saturday from here. Indiana, which debuted at No. 2, certainly fits in that first group, with firm control of its own destiny in both the playoff conversation and the Big Ten race.
The Hoosiers will know how the other half lives this weekend in State College — what Curt Cignetti has referred to before as “the old Indiana” was all too familiar with seasons like the one now besetting Penn State. But Cignetti will still see NFL draft picks and one of the most imposing road environments in America, albeit one not likely to be that impassioned, and reminders that even as his new Indiana makes history, its own frustrating past is never so far away.
Any team chasing what Indiana is chasing should know by now that the path to 12-0 is littered with a whole host of different obstacles.
“Same guys they started the year with, for the most part, that was ranked No. 1 to No. 3 in the country,” Cignetti said Monday, “so a lot of good football players at all positions, playing really hard.”
If the last two years could not have gone better for Indiana, then the last two months could not have gone worse for Penn State.
The Nittany Lions began this season almost fated, in some quarters, to finally break through that frustrating barrier and achieve top-end success that had eluded James Franklin. Penn State poured money into one of the richest coaching staffs in college football and into a roster it paid handsomely, to keep most of last year’s core together.
Pressure can be a weapon, but it can also be a poison. Indiana fans will remember how rapidly the Hoosiers’ 2021 season deflated, when it became clear the history IU had spent its offseason using as motivation would not be possible. That same phenomenon plays out in State College now.
Get-in prices for this weekend’s game at Beaver Stadium — normally among the most imposing road venues in the country — had sunk to $20 by Thursday afternoon. Fees included.
At its best, Penn State delivers a game-changing atmosphere. But State College is remote, even to most Nittany Lions fans. Attendance on gameday means driving the three-ish hours from Pittsburgh or Baltimore or Philadelphia (or perhaps slightly nearer locales like Harrisburg, York or Wilkes-Barre).
Fans have to want the game to get to it, and right now, that base is understandably preoccupied with other matters.
The greater threat for Indiana might be the one Cignetti identified Monday — talent on the field.
Quarterback Drew Allar is out for the season, but Penn State’s NFL-caliber running backs, Kaytron Allen and Nicholas Singleton, remain. There are future pros along both lines of scrimmage. The players Penn State paid to keep in State College for 2025 did not forget how to play Big Ten football anymore than coaches like coordinator Jim Knowles forgot how to scheme it.
Even as Cignetti has flattened the competitive curve so impressively in Bloomington these last two years, there remains an athletic level a select few programs can recruit to beyond what Indiana has historically delivered. Penn State is among those.
Cignetti won’t say this, but we can: Wisconsin is a sinking ship right now, and while Purdue is better than it was a year ago, the Hoosiers should be comfortably favored in the Bucket game at the end of November.
Penn State is the last serious hurdle between IU and Indianapolis, where Cignetti’s team should finally meet Ohio State in four weeks’ time.
Wounded as they are, the Nittany Lions still carry a threat Indiana cannot take lightly. And given no IU team has ever won in State College, this weekend is a reminder that even as the Hoosiers upturn so many historical conventions around their program, the long arm of their past still taps them on the shoulder every once in a while.
Indiana should win on Saturday. All available evidence suggests Indiana will win. But the Hoosiers cannot — and will not — expect an easy ride. The price of perfection is steep.
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This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana football at Penn State preview, Curt Cignetti warns of NFL talent
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