4 Takeaways from Indiana’s Emphatic CFP Semifinal Victory vs. Oregon

Mercedes-Benz Stadium (Atlanta) — Indiana freshman wide receiver Davion Chandler stopped just inside the tunnel to sign autographs for a boy following the most important win in school history.

As he did, an Oregon player watched while absentmindedly picking red and white confetti out of his head. The look on his face was one of bemusement and awe. In this, he probably shared that feeling with Oregon fans across the country who watched as Indiana fans basked in what seemed improbable to many in August.

The country’s largest living alumni base made itself heard, and, more importantly, felt inside the stadium. More than 75,600 fans — 4,000 more than listed capacity inside the stadium — found their way to the College Football Playoff semifinal game at the Peach Bowl to witness No. 1 Indiana’s 56-22 victory against No. 5 Oregon on Friday.

The Hoosiers rocked the Ducks to keep their undefeated season and national championship hopes alive, and Indiana’s fan base traveled to do its part. Hoosiers fans were loud from the start — so loud that I wondered, could Oregon’s offensive players hear the snap count? 

“There’s nothing like having a home semifinal game,” Cignetti said on stage after the dominant win.

Ducks quarterback Dante Moore was startled by just how many Indiana fans there were inside the dome.

“I thought it was just the red seats,” Moore said in his post-game press conference. “But it was Indiana fans. They had a ton of fans here.”

Here are my takeaways from Indiana’s blowout semifinal win against Oregon:

1. Indiana’s defense remains practically unstoppable

Unlike the Hoosiers’ 38-3 demolition of No. 9 Alabama in the CFP quarterfinal at the Rose Bowl, this game got out of hand much faster.

Oregon opened with the ball, and the first play from scrimmage was a pick-six from Indiana All-America cornerback D’Angelo Ponds, who finished with six total tackles.

“It was just [an] It’s an amazing feeling just to get to the end zone and see all the fans here,” Ponds, the Peach Bowl Defensive MVP, said on stage after the game. “I feel like it’s a home game, man.”

Moore had thrown just nine interceptions before that one. But he threw three total picks against the Hoosiers in five quarters this season.

When Oregon’s 20-year-old quarterback led a 14-play, 75-yard drive that ended in a touchdown pass, he left no doubt he was ready for the fight ahead. But after three turnovers and 14 points scored in the first half, it was clear that Indiana’s defense was going to outscore the Ducks.

At the end of the first half, Indiana led 35-7 against the No. 5 team in the country, who had beaten every opponent they faced except this Hoosiers team that now threw the Ducks into an oven and cooked them. Twice.

At halftime, Oregon coach Dan Lanning was asked what needed to happen to reduce the 28-point deficit his team faced when it came out to play the second half in the same place where Georgia destroyed Oregon, 49-3, in Lanning’s first game as the Ducks’ head coach in 2022.

“It starts with protecting the quarterback and taking care of the ball, two things we haven’t done in the first half,” Lanning said on the broadcast. “We’ve got to go out there and stop the defense. We started putting those things together and created some momentum for ourselves.”

In the CFP so far, Indiana crushed the No. 5 team and No. 9 Alabama by a combined score of 94-25.

“I think every man can learn from adversity, right?” Lanning said after a back-to-back CFP loss to end his team’s season. “I just told the whole locker room, right? This is going to be about how you respond in life. This is going to be a life lesson that a lot of people will never understand. We just got our asses kicked. That’s going to happen in life.”

2. Fernando Mendoza continues to surprise with unprecedented performances in the CFP

On Friday against the Ducks, Mendoza finished 17 of 20 for 177 yards with five touchdowns and no turnovers, and against Alabama on New Year’s Day, he was 14 of 16 for 192 yards and three touchdowns. That’s three more touchdown passes than incomplete passes in two playoff games.

That makes the Indiana quarterback the first player to have multiple games in the CFP with three or more touchdown passes while completing at least 85% of his attempts, according to FOX Sports Research. Mendoza has a season completion percentage of 72.3.

“I thought it was unbelievable. It was great,” Cignetti said in his postgame press conference. “I also thought our receivers made some good contested catches. I thought [wide receiver Elijah] Surratt was on fire. [Receiver] Charlie Becker made some big plays. [Receiver Omar] Cooper also got into action. And when he was not there, Fernando used his legs. “I mean he was at the top of the game.”

Mendoza is now the fourth player to throw five or more touchdown passes in a CFP game, joining LSU’s Joe Burrow, Alabama’s Mac Jones and Ohio State’s Justin Fields.

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3. Indiana plays like Curt Cignetti talks

Indiana dominated the CFP semifinals in the stadium that houses the defending SEC champion. As Cignetti gets one step closer to winning the national title, it’s becoming clearer that he could be the true successor to former Alabama coach Nick Saban (many already believe it’s Georgia coach Kirby Smart) as he engineered one of the best turnarounds in 157 years of the sport. Much of what you see in Indiana was characteristic of the Crimson Tide under Saban, for whom Cignetti was an assistant coach from 2007 to 2011.

And Cignetti did it not only his own way, but also after waiting a quarter-century to run his own program, first at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, then at Elon and James Madison. When he finally got the opportunity to coach at the Power 4 level in Indiana, he knew exactly what to do and exactly how he had to do it.

“When you come into a losing program,” Cignetti told reporters Wednesday, “you have to change people’s minds. You have to have a blueprint, a plan, standards, expectations.”

I would also tell you that it’s about the people he hired and the people he recruited to play for him. Your talent and character assessment should be, and are, elite.

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“We’re all on the same page and I think that’s critical,” Cignetti said. “Getting everyone to think alike and developing those intangibles as a unit throughout the season. But we are guided by processes with standards, expectations and accountability.”

Cignetti sugar covers little. He smiles less. He only feels satisfied when his team kicks another team’s ass, but he rarely shows it.

“I’m pretty direct in my messages with the team,” he said. “I try to make every word count. I don’t tolerate nonsense.

“I’m a little old school. You have to meet the standard. I mean, if you can’t meet the standard consistently, you’re in the wrong place. So my coaches do a great job and we have smart guys who are good players. When you have veterans, smart guys who can do a lot, you can do a lot.”

4. The rush of the transfer portal takes its toll on outgoing coordinators

When Indiana scored its 42nd point with 8:52 in the third quarter, Duck fans had to wonder if asking Lanning to his defensive coordinator to remain at Oregon for the postseason was the right decision.

When Oregon’s offense took the field after a full half with three sacks, three turnovers, just 121 yards of offense and nine yards rushing, the Ducks should have asked Lanning the same question when they allowed that unit to be led by a man who wouldn’t be around for Jan. 21 anyway.

It’s disturbing now to have filed my notebook with this sight: Oregon defensive coordinator (and Cal head coach) Tosh Lupoi descended the stairs leading from the suite level to the Mercedes-Benz Stadium concourse after 9 p.m. ET on Wednesday night, less than 48 hours before kickoff, talking on the phone.

As he moved among media members and behind Oregon offensive coordinator (and Kentucky head coach) Will Stein, he stopped just short of a seat with his business card to button up his conversation.

“You just look at the NFL talent on Cal’s roster,” Lupoi told one recruit.

After hanging up on the job he was doing as Cal’s coach, he began answering questions as the Ducks’ defensive coordinator, including balancing two jobs: managing recruiting players from the transfer portal for the Golden Bears and preparing his defense for the challenges Indiana’s offense posed.

How’s that, Tosh?

“Absolutely wonderful, so amazing,” he said with sarcasm in every syllable uttered. “What a great time to have the transfer portal open.”

I hadn’t slept much. He talked on FaceTime frequently. He drinks a lot of coffee and a lot of Red Bull. For Lanning, who needed to prepare his team for Friday night with two outgoing Oregon ducks, this was an unfortunate champagne problem.

“They’ve been going 100 miles an hour since they both got into that cycle where they have to do both,” Lanning said Thursday at the College Football Hall of Fame. “I give them a lot of credit for the work they’ve done and the way they’ve been able to stay focused on a piece that is extremely difficult.

“But again, I’ve said it before, they realize they don’t have those jobs if it’s not for the players on our team, and they feel like they owe it to their best effort to give them everything they have to continue to make the season special. And they’ve done a great job of doing that.”

Cignetti also felt the crisis of recruiting the portal, even though Indiana retained its offensive and defensive coordinators for the 2026 season. After defeating Alabama in the Rose Bowl, his team returned to Bloomington at 3:30 a.m. the next day and he arrived at his office that same day at 2 p.m.

“I knew I was going to miss some time the next day,” Cignetti said at the College Football Hall of Fame’s joint news conference with Lanning.

“I probably lost six hours of preparation. And I’m very involved in our day-to-day situational preparation, particularly on offense… I lost six valuable hours there, and probably three or four the next day as well. So I was playing catch-up most of the week.”

Cignetti caught up without any problems.

4 1/2. What’s next?

The College Football Playoff national championship game is officially scheduled: No. 1 Indiana will face No. 10 Miami in the title matchup on Jan. 19 at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida. The Hoosiers are playing for an undefeated season and their first national championship and a chance to be the first college football team to go 16-0. The Hurricanes are playing for their first title since 2001 and sixth overall.

RJ Young is a national college football writer and analyst for FOX Sports. follow him @RJ_joven.

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