'Step back and cool down': Bye week comes at opportunistic time for Indiana ahead of hopeful deep playoff push

Indiana is currently riding an 11-game overall winning streak, holds the nation’s longest home-winning streak and is one win away from cementing its spot in the Big Ten Championship. More often than not, continuing to play and staying in game-week mode is critical in these moments. But for Indiana, it’s the opposite.

Indiana’s second bye week of the season comes ahead of its final regular season game against Purdue next week, six weeks since it’s first open date of the season. In those six weeks, it’s been a mixed bag of slow starts, blowout wins, a road victory over then No. 3 Oregon and a dramatic comeback win at Penn State.

Now, it’s time for a reset.

“It will be great to enter an off-week now and get the players some rest. The coaches too, really, the assistant coaches,” Curt Cignetti said last week. “I may even adjust what I normally do. We don’t do much on off weeks, just stay sharp. But we need some rest.”

Adjusting schedules is likely to happen for Cignetti, who knows this week needs to be maximized in order to feel as ‘refreshed’ as they can on the other side.

For Indiana, the ability to play every play at 0-0 and every week at 0-0 takes its toll. So, mental as much as physical, this break is needed for a team looking to make a deep run in postseason play.

“Our team always controls the controllables and we can’t control the schedule,” Fernando Mendoza said. “However, I think we did a good job these six games, evidently we won every one of them which is great. And now we’re headed into the bye week, so I think it’s good for our guys to not only rest physically, but rest mentally for a couple days.”

Mentality is critical for this group which has been one of the sharpest teams this season — leading to its 11-0 record. Going so hard, so consistently and without much rest has led to more than just wearing down mentally.

Injuries — to different extents — have taken Elijah Sarratt, Mikail Kamara, Drew Evans and Brendan Franke off the field in the short and more longer term. So, getting another week of rest is extremely important for all four players who play critical roles for the No. 2 Hoosiers.

“We’ve got to get some guys back,” Cignetti said. “Got a lot of guys out there playing that are banged up, and we’ve got to get healed up as good as possible.”

“We’ve played a lot of games in a row, a lot of people are banged up, bruised and all that,” IU defensive end Stephen Daley added. “It’ll be great to get off our feet, recover, get back healthy and get ready for Purdue.”

While the lingering Big Ten Championship is in the background, a matchup with rival Purdue is on deck — a team that is looking to play spoiler after a 66-0 beatdown from IU last season.

Maintaining the same level of focus and preparation is vital for the Hoosiers — but expected with this group despite any and all outside noise.

“Each week is kinda a reset for us,” Aiden Fisher said. “It’s a process at this point. Every week is the same, every day is the same. It’s a little monotonous.”

So as Indiana enters the final stages of its 2025 season, the goal is refresh, retune and resharpen itself both mentally and physically in order to get ready for the second season on deck.

“The bye week will be really good, really good to give our bodies some rest. Going to Purdue off our bye will be really, really beneficial for us,” Charlie Becker said. “‘ll play every day. I love football so much, I’ll play all the time. But it’s super beneficial. Our coaches do a great job of handling the mental side, letting us take a step back and cool down before going into another big game.”

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