Triumphant at last: Indiana’s best hot start in over 100 years

Indiana is off to its best start since 1967, but there’s a larger story at play that makes the team’s first month much more mind-boggling.

In each of the Hoosiers’ first five wins, each one had a similar theme. Under first-year coach Curt Cignetti, the Hoosiers did more than turn around a fledgling football team. They accomplished this feat with dominant quarterback play, a tenacious defensive effort and the ability to control the clock when needed.

Indiana has not only started off unbeaten — they've crushed the competition by winning each game by double-digits for the first time since the 1904-1905 season. Somehow, it only took over 100 years, but the old saying of, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ applies greatly in this scenario.

Curt Cignetti explains Indiana's new culture of winning

Cignetti told reporters Monday, after a 42-28 win against Maryland last Saturday in Bloomington, he is the least bit surprised with the early-season success thus far.

“Well. Yeah. You've got a blueprint and a plan and you're creating a culture, an identity and a team mindset,” Cignetti said. “We want to be a tough, physical, relentless competitor that plays really hard one play at a time, smart, disciplined and poised. Never too high, never too low. That's how all the teams have played. That's how we're trying to get this team to play."

Indiana is on the fast track to 6-0 when it travels to Evanston on Saturday to face Northwestern (3:30 p.m. ET). The Wildcats are 2-2, having only mustered up five points in a 19-point loss at Washington on Sept. 21.

Don’t look now, but it appears the Hoosiers are here to stay in a rugged Big Ten .

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