Indiana finished a historic regular season with an amazing performance.
Now, the 10th-ranked Hoosiers have to wait and see if they will make it into the College Football Playoff.
Kurtis Rourke threw two of his six touchdown passes to Elijah Sarratt, while Justice Ellison and Ty Son Lawton each ran for a touchdown. The Hoosiers crushed rival Purdue 66-0 to win back the Old Oaken Bucket and possibly secure a playoff spot.
“It’s been a great season, these guys have had a lot of success, the leadership has been great and it’s been a great year for Indiana,” coach Curt Cignetti said. “We’re not finished yet and we’re not satisfied.”
When asked if Indiana earned a playoff spot, Cignetti replied, “Yeah, absolutely.”
Indiana (11-1, 8-1 Big Ten) set a new school record for most wins in a season with No. 11, beating Purdue by the largest margin in the 125-game rivalry. This victory broke the previous record of 52-7 in 1988 and was Indiana’s biggest home win in the series, surpassing the 37-0 victory in 1917. It was also the largest league win in school history.
The only downside was that Indiana was eliminated from the Big Ten championship game after No. 4 Penn State beat Maryland 44-7 earlier in the day.
Despite this, the team celebrated their most successful season in school history, even though they have the most losses in FBS history with 714.
“It was a pretty dominant win,” Cignetti said. “I thought we really played well on defense and we missed some opportunities on offense, but it’s a rivalry game.”
Purdue (1-11, 0-9) ended the season with another tough loss.
The Boilermakers lost their final 11 games, including three shutouts and six losses by 35 or more points, like Saturday’s loss — the worst in Purdue’s history, breaking the 66-7 loss earlier this season.
Purdue failed to win a game in conference play for the fourth time since 1946, couldn’t beat an FBS team for only the second time in college football’s modern era, and was shut out by Indiana for the first time since 1945.
The cold, snowy weather, which forced the field crew to use leaf blowers to clear the yard lines during the first half, made the loss feel even worse.
“It was the worst performance offensively that I’ve ever seen,” Purdue coach Ryan Walters said. “We couldn’t do anything. I didn’t see this coming. I thought we had a good week of practice, but when we play top-10 teams, we see how far we have to go.”
Ellison’s 2-yard touchdown run in the first quarter gave Indiana the lead. The Hoosiers expanded their lead to 28-0 in the second quarter with three more scores — a 14-yard pass from Rourke to Ke’Shawn Williams, an 84-yard touchdown pass from Rourke to Sarratt, and Lawton’s 4-yard run.
Purdue could not recover from this.
Rourke completed 23 of 31 passes for 349 yards, tying the Indiana record for six touchdown passes in a game. Sarratt caught eight passes for 165 yards as Indiana outgained Purdue 582-67 in total yards.
Purdue’s quarterback Hudson Card was 6 of 13 with 35 yards and one interception. He did not play in the second half.
