The Hoosiers Peach Bowl rout showed fundamental execution still beats flash and speed.

The Hoosiers Peach Bowl rout showed fundamental execution still beats flash and speed. originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

Curt Cignetti has proven himself to many things as he’s become more known. Deliberate, confident, sound in approach, a winning football coach, and even funny when he wants to be. He’s also focused and determined. The way Indiana wins games isn’t a secret. There’s no gadgetry about what they do. To put it simply, Indiana just out-executes their opponents.

Whatever the consensus opinion on Cignetti might be, Dan Lanning would be the opposite. Oregon is fast and high powered. A good amount of what they do is not gadgetry, but it is built on the ability to maximize speed and utilize misdirection.

Oregon is great at what they do. When they face teams that struggle to keep up with their athletes and offensive scheme. However, execution levels any schematic playing field.

The Hoosiers are disciplined, are rarely out of position and minimize mental errors when facing a team like Oregon that thrives on getting defenders out of position. As Oregon learned early in the Peach Bowl, speed and scheme don’t count for much when the other team is out-executing from the start.

Indiana set the tone early and Oregon struggled to recover

This game started with Oregon back peddling from the first play. Even before Dante Moore would feel pressure from the Indiana defense, D’Angelo Ponds picks him off and returns it for a touchdown. 7-0 Indiana before the 14:50 mark of the first quarter.

Oregon would answer with a touchdown of their own. Indiana would make it 14-7 before the start of the second quarter. On a first and ten from the Oregon eight-yard line, Moore loses control of the football and fumbles. The execution part comes half a heartbeat later when three Hoosiers pounce on the ball.

Indiana would add two more touchdowns in more conventional fashion before the end of the first half. Lanning’s Ducks found themselves down 35-7 with no logical reasoning to believe the second half would be much different. However, this is still a high powered, explosive offense built around speed. How Oregon started the second half would be a big indicator.

Oregon narrowed the score to 49-15 and at this point in the game but wouldn’t seen the endzone again until the waning moments of the game. The Oregon players were still very much fighting for production. There was no quit in this game. Still far out of reach, there was a sense that they would find a way to a least narrow the divide on the scoreboard.

Indiana's execution would not allow Oregon to get off the mat

Then Indiana out-executed Oregon again. At the worst time and yard line imaginable. Down 42-15 and about to punt from their own goal line, two Hoosiers break through their blocks and Daniel Ndukwe cleanly get a piece of the ball, allowing Kaiden Turner to recover the blocked punt. Indiana scored yet another touchdown only 3 plays later.

By the two-minute timeout, Oregon faced a 56-15 deficit with time running out. The late offense by Oregon was a feast or famine situation. Chunk plays of 9-40 yards each or incompletions. Oregon would narrow the scoring gap but not enough to change the narrative. 56-22 was the final.

In the end, this game was a story of one team simply out executing the other. Maximizing big plays and winning the ‘situational football’ battle. To put it plainly, Oregon was simply never in this game. Using fight vernacular, good teams take the first punch and punch back. In the Peach Bowl, Indiana punched first and by the time Oregon got up off the mat, they were already down 8 rounds on the scorecard.

The No. 1 Indiana Hoosiers will face the No. 10 Miami Hurricanes in the college football playoff National Championship game.

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