The 2025 Indiana Hoosiers football team represented Indiana University Bloomington (Indiana or IU) during the 2025 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The Hoosiers were led by second-year head coach Curt Cignetti. They played home games at Memorial Stadium located in Bloomington, Indiana as members of the Big Ten Conference.
The 2025 season was the most successful season in Indiana's football history. The season included numerous firsts for the program: The Hoosiers defeated a top-five ranked opponent on the road for the first time (week 7 at No. 5 Oregon); had their highest AP poll, Coaches Poll, and College Football Playoff rankings in program history (all at No. 1); had a road victory at Penn State in week 11, marking their first-ever win in Happy Valley; finished the regular season with a perfect 12âÂÂ0 record for the first time (exceeding their program record of 11 wins from the previous year); and made their first Big Ten Championship Game in program history. In that game, they defeated then-No. 1 Ohio State for the first time since 1988, won the Big Ten title for the first time since 1967, and won the conference outright for the first time since 1945. Quarterback Fernando Mendoza also became the first Hoosier to win the Heisman Trophy. This Indiana team was the first one since then to finish the regular season undefeated and the only one to do so without tying a game after ties were abolished following the 1995 regular season with the introduction of overtime. Their appearance in the Big Ten Championship against Ohio State reached a record-breaking 18.3 million viewers, making it the most-watched conference championship in college football history.
As the No. 1 seed in the playoff, they received a first-round bye and played in the Rose Bowl, Indiana's second Rose Bowl appearance (the other being in 1967) and the Hoosiers' third appearance in a major bowl or equivalent. They defeated No. 9 Alabama 38âÂÂ3 for their first-ever Rose Bowl victory. This was also the first bowl victory for Indiana since the 1991 Copper Bowl. With the win, they advanced to the national semifinal at the Peach Bowl against the Oregon Ducks. In a rematch of a regular-season game on October 11, they won 56âÂÂ22, with Fernando Mendoza throwing 5 touchdown passes.
With the win, the team advanced to the College Football Playoff National Championship, their first ever appearance in a national championship game. They defeated the Miami Hurricanes 27âÂÂ21 at Hard Rock Stadium on January 19, 2026 to win their first national championship in program history. With the feat, they became the first FBS team to compile a perfect 16-win season since the 1894 Yale Bulldogs, the first Big Ten team other than Michigan or Ohio State to win a consensus national championship since Minnesota in 1960, and the first new team to win a national championship since Florida in 1996. This team also became the first Hoosiers' athletic program to win a national championship and complete an undefeated season since the 1975âÂÂ76 men's basketball team. The 2025 Indiana Hoosiers are regarded as one of the greatest turnarounds in college football history, as they were just two seasons removed from a 3âÂÂ9 record and prior to the season had the most all-time losses among FBS college football programs, and Cignetti compiling an astonishing 27âÂÂ2 record in his first two seasons with Indiana.
The Indiana Hoosiers drew an average home attendance of 51,184, the 42nd-highest of all college football teams.
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Fernando Mendoza was "firmly entrenched as the starter" after spring football camp. Fernando's brother, Alberto Mendoza was the first backup, followed by Old Dominion transfer Grant Wilson.
Indiana was projected to finish sixth in the Big Ten in the preseason media poll.
This win marked the first time in program history that the Hoosiers defeated a top-5 ranked opponent on the road.
<small>Key: POS: Position, SOLO: Solo Tackles, AST: Assisted Tackles, TOT: Total Tackles, TFL: Tackles-for-loss, SACK: Quarterback Sacks, INT: Interceptions, BU: Passes Broken Up, PD: Passes Defended, QBH: Quarterback Hits, FR: Fumbles Recovered, FF: Forced Fumbles</small>