Ryan Day identifies what makes Indiana dangerous this season

Indiana is rolling into Columbus for a Top 5 showdown with Ohio State. And it’s a matchup — and season from the Hoosiers — that has caught plenty off guard.

Ohio State head coach Ryan Day may or may not have been surprised by the season that Indiana is enjoying, but as he’s dug into his opponent for Saturday, he’s begun to pick up on a few reasons why they’ve played so well. And while much of it comes down to coaching and buy in, his first point was to compliment how well the Indiana players have been playing.

“I think the first thing is I don’t think their players get enough credit,” Day said. “I think coach has done a great job and they’ve done a nice job this year, but the players are the ones who play. And they have good players. And they’ve done a nice job of changing their roster. They’ve upgraded their roster in certain areas. I think they play very hard. They are well coached. And they take care of the football, they cause turnovers, they play well on special teams.”

But Day could also not ignore the work done by new head coach Curt Cignetti, both in turning over the roster and the finer tweaks and tidbits of coaching that he’s put on display.

“And they play their best players play on special team,” Day said, continuing. “For instance, their top running back is back there as a protector on the punt. Which does a lot of things. It shows that special teams are important to them but it also makes you be aware, ‘Hey, there’s a running back back there when they’re punting.’ So I think there’s a lot of things they’ve done but you can see they’ve been successful in everything they’ve been looking to do in terms of installing a culture in all three phases. So it’s going to be a great challenge for our team, we’re looking forward to it.”

There’s also been a mental and psychological edge for the Hoosiers this year, an embrace of the culture that has helped the team flourish so fast.

In some ways, Day sounded almost envious when he talked about Cignetti’s ability to get Indiana’s program on the same page. Though, Cignetti did have a bit of a way to hot wire the rebuild and cultural reset.

“I think what’s unique about this situation is Coach Cignetti came over from James Madison and brought a core with him,” Day said. “So there was already a group of guys that knew the culture and then he integrated with those guys, had some success early and then it’s just kind of grown from there. And I think that’s a winning recipe. I think when you come in without having guys who know your culture, that’s a little bit of a different approach. For us, we want to make sure we’re retaining as much of the roster as possible on a yearly basis, knowing that that’s not possible to do everybody, to keep the culture alive and to make sure we’re recruiting the right people for our program.

“But every program has their own philosophies and a different situation and has to respond appropriately. But at the end of the day, it’s about having a team who believes in what you’re trying to get done as a program and then also wants to play for each other. The thing about this team here, they’re not worried about individual accolades or anything like this, especially late in the season. They’re focused on winning and they want to play for each other. And when you have that, you have a chance.”