Indiana’s regular-season finale at Purdue started with a little more resistance than the final score might suggest, but once the Hoosiers found their footing, the game tilted hard in their direction.
IU managed only 54 yards in the opening quarter, and Purdue actually outgained the Hoosiers in that stretch. Still, Indiana walked off the first quarter with a 7-3 lead on the scoreboard. From there, the offense caught fire in the second quarter, piling up nearly 200 yards and punching in three touchdowns.
The ground game was the difference-maker. Purdue never found an answer for Indiana’s rushing attack, and the Hoosiers leaned on it to take control.
Of Indiana’s 197 second-quarter yards, 185 came on the ground. By the end of the day, IU had 355 rushing yards, while Purdue finished with 282 total yards.
Indiana’s defense had to absorb a couple of longer Purdue drives, but those were the exceptions rather than the rule. The Boilermakers put together an 11-play, 67-yard march in the first quarter that ended in a field goal, then later had a 10-play, 39-yard drive in the second quarter that stalled out with a missed field goal. Outside of those possessions, the Hoosiers were locked in.
IU finished with 10 tackles for loss, and defensive end Stephen Daley was all over the place. He posted 4.5 TFLs, added a sack and forced a fumble, giving Indiana a disruptive edge that helped keep Purdue from building any real momentum.
In Other News...
Indiana Just Missed On A Priority Running Back Recruit
Indiana had been in the mix for one of the more sought-after running backs in the 2027 class, but the latest turn on the trail leaves the Hoosiers still searching for a boost at the position. Elijah Kimble, a four-star back from New York who entered the cycle as the states top player and one of the nations top-ranked runners, had drawn serious attention from a finalist group that also included Ohio State and North Carolina.
For Indiana, the miss matters because the 2027 class still includes only one running back, 3-star Da'Jon Talley-Rhodes, and the Hoosiers remain at No. 29 in the Rivals Recruiting Rankings. Kimbles decision also comes after he spent a weekend in Bloomington in April, a sign Indiana was at least firmly in the conversation before the race narrowed and the Hoosiers were left looking to the next target. [Read more 🡒]
Curt Cignetti Is Chasing A Recruiting Breakthrough IU Has Never Seen
Indianas football rise under Curt Cignetti has started to show up in places the program has rarely been able to reach, and the pursuit of Monshun Sales is the latest sign. The 5-star wide receiver from the 2027 class is one of the sports premier young prospects, ranked by Rivals as the No. 1 receiver and No. 8 player overall, and Indiana has put itself in the conversation alongside the usual heavyweight suspects.
Sales has already worked through official visits to Indiana, Alabama, Texas, Ohio State and LSU, and his list of finalists says plenty about how far the Hoosiers have come in a short time. With Cignettis program fresh off a national championship run, Indiana is no longer just trying to get in the room with blue-chip recruits, it is trying to close on one of them, and Sales could become the kind of pickup that changes how the rest of the country views the Hoosiers on the trail. [Read more 🡒]
Indiana Needs Tobi Osunsanmi To Be A True Difference Maker
As Indiana looks ahead to 2026 after its first national championship, one of the more intriguing defensive pieces is Tobi Osunsanmi, the redshirt senior EDGE who has been building toward a bigger role. At 6-foot-3 and 240 pounds, he brings the kind of speed and burst that can change a game off the edge, and his move from linebacker to defensive end in 2023 has helped shape him into a pass-rush specialist the Hoosiers can lean on.
What makes Osunsanmi so important is the ceiling that comes with that skill set. A Kansas State beat writer who studied him up close saw a player with Sunday-level potential, but also one who still has work to do when offenses come right at him, especially against the run and through heavy blocking looks. Indiana does not need him to be perfect, but it does need him to keep turning pressure into disruption if the defense is going to stay at a championship level. [Read more 🡒]