Oregon<\/a> somehow looked like a significantly worse team than when these two met in the regular season \u2014 a testament to Indiana\u2019s defense and Oregon\u2019s own slew of preventable mistakes.<\/p>\nIt started from the opening moments, when Moore threw a pick six on the first play from scrimmage that had Mercedes-Benz Stadium nearly bursting at the seams. Moore settled in on the second series of the night and led the Ducks on a touchdown drive, but the wheels fell off entirely in the second quarter. By halftime alone, Moore had lost two fumbles \u2014 lowlighted by a collision with running back Dierre Hill Jr. during his windup to throw that jarred the ball loose inside his own 5 \u2014 and the Hoosiers had scored 21 of their 35 first-half points on Oregon turnovers.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst thing is first, the quarterback has to protect the football,\u201d Moore said. \u201cThey have a great defense, great disguise and different looks, but you can\u2019t win football games if you\u2019re causing turnovers. Something of course I need to work at.\u201d<\/p>\n
Moore, who said after the game he had not yet decided whether he would leave school to enter the NFL Draft, finished the night 24 of 39 passing for 285 yards, two touchdowns and the opening interception. Take away the three first-half turnovers, and the final score may have looked a little more competitive for the Ducks. Instead, the game \u2014 and Oregon\u2019s season \u2014 was over by halftime. \u2014 Grace Raynor<\/p>\n
Hoosiers fans take over the Peach Bowl<\/p>\n
Indiana fans flooded downtown Atlanta in the lead-up to the game, and it showed inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Outside of a small section next to the Oregon band and some patches in the lower deck, the crowd was overwhelmingly wearing crimson and rooting for the Hoosiers. Several in the press box had it as a roughly 90-10 split in favor of the Big Ten champs. The Ducks were soundly booed during their entrance.<\/p>\n
It was the biggest Indiana football game to date, facing an Oregon program that\u2019s already played two Playoff games: a home game and another cross-country trip to Miami for the Orange Bowl.<\/p>\n
Indiana didn\u2019t get to host a Playoff game because, as the top seed in the College Football Playoff, it earned a first-round bye and a trip to the Rose Bowl. But Friday\u2019s game in Atlanta was practically a Hoosiers home game anyway, in a packed stadium. And it sounded like it when Ponds ran in his pick six on the first play to set off the rout. By the end of the third quarter, the Hoosiers faithful were dancing along to the Isley Brothers\u2019 \u201cShout\u201d as much as the few remaining fans in green were. \u2014 Ubben<\/p>\n
Another Big Ten 3-peat?<\/p>\n
The Big Ten has a chance to win its third straight national title for the first time in more than 80 years.<\/p>\n
The top-seeded Hoosiers (15-0) face No. 10 seed Miami (13-2) for the national championship on Jan. 19 in Miami Gardens, Fla. Should Indiana win, it will join Michigan and Ohio State in carrying the league banner. The Big Ten last won three straight titles from 1940 to 1942.<\/p>\n
In 1940 and 1941, Minnesota extended one of the sport\u2019s greatest dynasties, collecting its fourth and fifth national titles in eight years. The Gophers won top-three showdowns against Michigan in the pair of years, in renditions of what was the Big Ten\u2019s preeminent rivalry over the conference\u2019s first 50 years.<\/p>\n
The Gophers\u2019 1941 squad was one of the most dominant in college football history, crushing its eight opponents by a combined score of 186-38. That year was also the final championship for legendary coach Bernie Bierman, who went into military service following the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.<\/p>\n
Ohio State claimed its first national title in 1942 with a 9-1 record. The Buckeyes lost a Halloween showdown with Wisconsin that put the Badgers in position to earn their first title. However, No. 2 Wisconsin stumbled with a late-season loss to Iowa, while Ohio State won its last four games by an average of 27 points to secure the Associated Press crown. Wisconsin finished third that season.<\/p>\n
Michigan claimed the CFP title two years ago by stopping current Big Ten foe Washington, in the Huskies\u2019 final season representing the Pac-12. Last year, Ohio State won four straight games in the inaugural 12-team CFP to win its championship. The Hoosiers have never won a national title. \u2014 Dochterman<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Scott Dochterman, David Ubben and Grace Raynor The Indiana Hoosiers are one win from turning an impossible…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399472,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,1607,451,6815,3,5693,452,453],"class_list":["post-399471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-college-football","tag-headlines","tag-indiana-hoosiers","tag-news","tag-oregon-ducks","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}