Indiana football’s massive fanbase fuels run to CFP national championship

ATLANTA — Everywhere you turned, they were there. 

In your hotel lobby. Walking the streets of Atlanta. In your favorite restaurant or bar. 

Inside Gibney’s Pub the night before the Peach Bowl, it was a full crimson takeover. Decked in their favorite red gear, Indiana fans packed into the popular pub to watch the Fiesta Bowl between Ole Miss and Miami. There wasn’t an Oregon fan in sight. 

They loudly cheered for Ole Miss, letting out their famous “Hoo Hoo Hoo Hoosiers!” chant any time the Rebels did anything successful on the field. And even though Ole Miss lost, there was a joyousness with this rabid Indiana fanbase that has sometimes been missing in recent playoff games, especially ones featuring traditional powerhouses. 

That was just a preview of what was to come the following night inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Indiana fans outnumbered Oregon fans at least 4-to-1 in what turned out to be a 56-22 blowout win to send the Hoosiers to the College Football Playoff national championship game. After it was over, Indiana coach Curt Cignetti loudly crowed, “There’s nothing like having a home semifinal game.” 

Even Indiana wasn’t entirely sure what to expect in the lead-up to the game. Their ravenous fanbase had taken over the Rose Bowl already, but there were some initial concerns that Oregon could travel well. Indiana even practiced a silent count in case the opposing fans got loud in Atlanta, according to left tackle Carter Smith, which Indiana had had to do against Oregon the first time around in a 30-20 win. As Cignetti pointed out after the game, Indiana had seven pre-snap penalties in that game trying to deal with the noise. There was no leaving that up to chance with a national title game appearance on the line. 

As crimson flooded into the Benz, creating what might have been a 90/10 split against Oregon fans, any need for a silent count went out the window. 

“Not having to go on silent count because of Hoosier Nation being here and making them go on silent count is a huge aspect of the game and offensive operation that’s not talked about enough,” Indiana star quarterback Fernando Mendoza said. “Shout out to Hoosier Nation because going on silent count, especially against the Ducks, is always tough and making the other team go on silent count might have counted for some points.”

Said Smith: “I love Hoosier Nation. They rally for us so well, they travel for us so well.”

The noise certainly seemed to impact Oregon quarterback Dante Moore. He threw a pick-six on Oregon’s first play, and it didn’t improve much from there. It was deafening inside the stadium when D’Angelo Ponds returned that interception to give Indiana a 7-0 lead just 11 seconds into the game. Moore had three turnovers in total, seemingly overwhelmed by Indiana’s swarming defense and its loud fans. 

Inside the pick-six play that kickstarted Indiana’s destruction of Oregon in CFP semifinals

John Talty

The questions on the minds of many: How exactly is Indiana doing this?

If you weren’t aware before, you certainly are now that Indiana claims the largest living alumni base (more than 800,000 worldwide). There are Indiana fans all over the country, but many lay dormant like sleeper cells as the Hoosiers’ football program wallowed in losing and irrelevancy for decades. They needed a call to action, a reason to believe a financial investment in IU football was worth it.

Enter Cignetti and his famous “I win. Google me” confidence that almost immediately changed fan attitudes. The tremendous winning that followed prompted more investment, financially and emotionally, from a fanbase that traditionally cared more about basketball. It all coalesced around this special 2025 Indiana team that featured Cignetti, Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Fernando Mendoza and a defense that has frustrated every opponent to date. It was like after every Indiana win, it activated another part of the fanbase that never believed this kind of run was possible for the Hoosiers. 

“To watch this many people getting excited about Indiana football is truly a surprise,” said Galen Clavio, who hosts the CrimsonCast podcast, “but I think it’s because of how unique this story is. What Curt Cignetti and his staff and the players have done in creating not just a great story with all these unique features but being such a dominant team has galvanized the fanbase into almost Beatlemania.”

A sign of the changing times: The most packed Assembly Hall will be this year — so far, at least — will be for a title game watch party on Monday. Tickets for the event were all gone within two hours of being available. 

Clavio, who also works as the director of IU’s National Sports Journalism Center, made the trips to the Rose Bowl and Peach Bowl, and plans on being in Miami for the national championship. The Indiana alumnus says he’s been to every Indiana bowl game over the last 20 years except one, and there’s been strong fan turnouts along the way. But nothing quite like this, where IU fans have overwhelmed Alabama and Oregon fans on college football’s biggest stage. 

It hasn’t been cheap for Indiana fans to do so. If you’ve made the trips to the Big Ten championship, Rose Bowl and Peach Bowl you’ve already spent thousands of dollars on airfare, lodging and tickets. It’ll be even more expensive to get into Hard Rock Stadium on Monday with the cheapest tickets available selling on third-party resellers like StubHub for nearly $2,700. 

But there’s a newness to it all that feels special for Indiana fans. After all, this was the losingest team in FBS history before Cignetti took it over. The program had not won a bowl game since 1991 when Bill Mallory’s Hoosiers beat Baylor in the Copper Bowl. 

“We’re hungry and we like being the underdog,” alumnus and billionaire booster Mark Cuban told CBS Sports at the Peach Bowl. “We haven’t experienced this before, so I think everybody wanted to come out and see what it was like. Now they know. We’ve got one more.”

As someone remarked to Clavio, “We’ve been saving up for football trips for 30 years and didn’t realize it.”

“People are making the decision to do it because of the opportunity to potentially be a part of something truly historic,” Clavio said. “I think that’s what this team has done. It’s created an environment where people feel like this is historic. This is something that I will remember for the rest of my life.

“That’s the thing about Indiana people, maybe even more so than people from other schools. There’s such an affinity for the university, there’s such an affinity for the sports programs that are here that people want to feel like they’re a part of it.”

Miami will be the ultimate litmus test for an Indiana fanbase that has conquered its opponent everywhere it goes. The Hoosiers have a massive alumni advantage over private school Miami, but the home game makes it easy for Hurricanes’ fans to spend up on tickets without having to worry about airfare and hotel costs. That the game features a homegrown Miami coach in Mario Cristobal and a Miami native Heisman winner in Mendoza just adds to the interest. 

Count out this Indiana fanbase at your own peril, however. Said Clario, “I wouldn’t be shocked if Indiana had as many, if not more, in the stands.” 

Indiana fans are everywhere, and the crimson wave is coming to overtake Miami next.