Week 4 was a statement moment for the Indiana Hoosiers. Indiana tore the Illinois Fighting Illini to shreds in a way that makes you stop and ask the bigger question: is this team for real?
A 63-10 final grabs attention on its own, but the performance goes deeper than the box score.
The short end of it: this wasn't luck, it wasn't Illinois having a bad day, and it wasn't a September mirage. There's more to that score than meets the eye, and I will lay it all out.
Indiana romped Illinois, 63-10: What it tell us
The Hoosiers' dominant win over Illinois was a confirmation of everything we thought this team could be. Indiana dismantled the Illini in every possible way.
Fernando Mendoza was nearly perfect, completing 21-of-23 passes for 267 yards and five touchdowns. The run game was just as dominant, piling up 312 yards on 49 carries. The offensive line controlled the line of scrimmage, opening lanes for backs and giving Mendoza time to carve up the secondary.
Indiana's defense was just as stout, suffocating Illinois from the opening snap. The Illini finished with only 161 total yards and two rushing yards on 20 attempts. That is not a typo. Two!
Indiana's defensive front lived in the backfield, racking up seven sacks and holding Illinois to 1-for-10 on third-down conversions. What was supposed to be a competitive conference matchup turned into one of the most lopsided box scores of the season.
This game tells us Indiana is a complete team. Offense, defense, depth and discipline all clicked. If this is the version we see the rest of the year, the Hoosiers belong in the playoff conversation.
It wasn't a fluke
This game was the exact picture my preseason reads painted. In my Top 25 article back in August, I liked the over on the season win total for the Hoosiers and the under on the Illini. Saturday showed exactly why.
For Indiana, the pieces were already in place. Mendoza stepped into a system that set school records last season, and he has looked every bit the part of a steady, efficient quarterback. Through four games, he's completing nearly 77% of his passes with 17 touchdowns and no interceptions, and the run game has rolled to more than 1,200 yards at 6.8 yards per carry. That balance, paired with a defense returning All-American talent, was always the blueprint.
On the other side, the Illini loss wasn't just a one-off. It was the natural result of a team built for sustained success flexing its ceiling. Illinois showed exactly what preseason doubts suggested. Last year's resume looked stronger than it was, and losing Josh McCray, their most physical running back, stripped them of an identity.
Rushing for only two total yards and getting knocked to the ground seven times is a glaring sign of a team that was overvalued coming in at No. 12. The Hoosiers weren't simply hot; they exposed every concern Illinois carried into 2025.
That's correlation in its cleanest form.
What do we do with this information?
Next comes the real question: what to do with the Hoosiers as they stare down the Oregon Ducks and Penn State Nittany Lions? The metrics tell us they belong in both games. Offensively, Indiana sits top 10 in EPA/play and success rate, with the ability to beat you on the ground or through the air.
Defensively, the Hoosiers smother consistency, ranking top five in success rate allowed and second against the pass. Oregon presents a balanced test, maybe the tougher of the two, with elite efficiency both running and passing.
Penn State, however, circle that one -- is a clearer matchup fit. Its offense is one-dimensional, strong in the run game but limited through the air (nothing new), and Indiana's secondary is the exact kind of unit that can choke off those drives.
These are the two spots that will define Indiana's ceiling. Even splitting the two, especially with a win at Penn State, would elevate Indiana from a nice September story into a legitimate playoff contender.
What this adds up to is opportunity. If Indiana is as good as it has looked through four games, there's a path here to 10 or 11 wins and a spot in the playoff discussion. At +1500 in the Big Ten futures
, the Hoosiers are undervalued, given a schedule that is tough enough to prove legitimacy, but not so brutal that it knocks them out.