Oregon entered the Peach Bowl looking for revenge. However, things went south pretty fast. On the opening drive, Dante Moore tossed a costly first-quarter interception, one of the roughest moments of his career. Still, the Ducks didn’t flinch. The trust in Moore never cracked, and center Iapani Laloulu made sure his quarterback knew it, loud and clear.

“I just kept telling him, Dante, I love you, boy. I love you. Really do love you,” Laloulu said during the post-game presser. “You ain’t got to worry. I’m here no matter what. The bad, the good, I’m gonna stick with you.

Obviously, it wasn’t the outcome we wanted, but I keep telling him, if I just smile through it, just have joy, because we’ve got to have joy in adversity, because we’ve brought it this far.”

Laloulu proved he’s a true teammate to Dante Moore. But even setting that ugly interception aside, Moore’s night only got tougher. And it hurt Oregon badly. The biggest gut punch came on a pick-six. Indiana’s D’Angelo Ponds jumped a quick pass to the left flat, snagged it clean, and took it 25 yards to the house. Just like that, the Hoosiers were up 7–0 only 11 seconds into the game.

To Moore’s credit, he bounced back on the very next drive, calmly marching the Ducks downfield to tie it at 7–7. But Indiana wasn’t done setting the tone. Moore struggled to hang onto the ball and committed two more turnovers before halftime. The first came early in the second quarter with Oregon backed up at its own 13. Moore tried to get a quick throw off, but his arm clipped freshman running back Dierre Hill Jr. mid-motion.

The ball popped loose, Indiana recovered it at the Oregon 3, and Kaelon Black punched it in one play later to make it 21–7. Then came another mistake late in the half. Under heavy pressure, Moore took a blindside hit from Daniel Ndukwe, coughing up the ball again. Mario Landino fell on it at the Oregon 21, and Indiana turned that into yet another touchdown. By halftime, the Ducks trailed 35–7, and 21 of those points came straight off Moore’s three turnovers.

Dan Lanning’s true verdict on the loss against Indiana

Dan Lanning did not shy away from giving credit where it was due. He spoke highly of Indiana’s dominance and did not just attribute the loss to Oregon’s struggles with turnovers.

“When you have the takeaways, you start off with the pick six, you get in a little bit of a hole. You probably start to press a little bit,” Lanning said Friday. “You get away from some of the success you have in the run game, at times. But there were moments when we had some good plays.

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But that’s a damn good team. You’ve got to give credit to them, too. It’s not just what we didn’t do. It’s what they did do.”

Lanning went on to rave about Indiana as a team without “a weakness in their game.”

“They run the ball well. Stop the run well,” Lanning said. “They throw the ball well. They defend the pass well. They’re great on special teams. So, you see a really complete team, a well-coached team.”

Indiana flat-out controlled the game on the ground. The Hoosiers piled up 185 rushing yards and averaged a solid 4.6 yards per carry. Kaelon Black led the way with 12 carries for 63 yards and two touchdowns, highlighted by a late 23-yard burst that put the game out of reach. Heisman winner Fernando Mendoza chipped in with 28 rushing yards of his own, doing just enough to keep drives alive.

The run game was especially deadly in the red zone and during the second-half four-minute drill that slammed the door shut. Defensively, Indiana flipped the script on Oregon. The Hoosiers held the Ducks to just 9 rushing yards on 17 carries in the first half. Take away Dierre Hill Jr.’s lone 71-yard breakout run, and Oregon couldn’t find any rhythm on the ground.

The pivotal moment came on a fourth-and-short in the third quarter, when linebacker Aiden Fisher stuffed Oregon for a loss, effectively killing all hopes. Through the air, Mendoza was very efficient. He threw five touchdown passes while recording just three incompletions. And just to put an exclamation point on the night, Indiana’s special teams blocked an Oregon punt in the fourth quarter, setting up yet another short touchdown drive.