ATLANTA — Indiana didn’t need the extra help, it turned out. The Hoosiers would take it, though.

No. 5 Oregon (13-2) turned the ball over three times in the first half of the Peach Bowl against No. 1 Indiana (15-0), including a first-play interception housed by Hoosiers cornerback D’Angelo Ponds, and couldn’t rebound in time to stop Fernando Mendoza (17-20, 177 yards, five touchdowns) from sealing his spot in the National Championship Game with a 56-22 victory. 

Dante Moore (24-39, 285 yards, two touchdowns, interception) fumbled twice and Mendoza did his part via a trio of first-half touchdown passes to Omar Cooper Jr., Charlie Becker and Elijah Sarratt. 

The part that mattered was over by the half.

“It sucks right now,” Bryce Boettcher said postgame. “I’m not going to lie. Not how I envisioned it whatsoever.”

Moore’s first pass went to the left flat. Then it went the wrong way.

If it didn’t already sound like a Hoosiers home game after the run out, national anthem or coin toss, it was then. Ponds sat under Malik Benson’s route and picked off Moore’s first-down throw. He shoved it home in front of the Indiana fans (which would’ve been wherever he wanted to go).

“Ponds is a really talented player. He made a really good play,” co-offensive coordinator Drew Mehringer said. “It’s one of those deals (for Moore) where it’s, ‘Don’t flinch,’ right? At that point, how much time is left in the game? There’s a lot of football left to play.”

Oregon’s second drive — the real first one — featured a heavy dose of Jay Harris. The running back, who is already in the transfer portal, returned to aid the Ducks after Jordon Davison was ruled out and Noah Whittington picked up a foot injury in midweek.

Harris (16 carries, 35 yards, touchdown) had seven touches, netting 32 yards as the Ducks rebounded from the pick-six with a 14 play, 75 yard, 7:38 drive. Whittington was in to pick up a blitz on the final play, a third-and-12 where Dante Moore ripped a pass down the seam to tight end Jamari Johnson for a touchdown. It’s a similar throw to the one he made against Texas Tech to convert the Ducks’ first third down a week ago, or any of the times he’s found Kenyon Sadiq there this season.

“We talked about this,” Jeremiah McClellan said. “We knew some type of adversity was going to hit. Our biggest thing was resetting and coming back in, ‘How can we respond? How do we respond?’”

It didn’t look like Oregon could rattle Mendoza after he navigated a third-and-7 blitz for a 21-yard gain on the ground. The Hoosiers’ drive, though, was halted after Boettcher batted down Mendoza’s second-down pass near midfield and freshman Nasir Wyatt forced a fumble and chased down the quarterback for a sack after he recovered.

The ball never went forward. After the Hoosiers punted, Moore pulled the ball back to pass on first down and lost it in a collision with Dierre Hill Jr.’s shoulder pad. The Hoosiers recovered, and punched it in. Instead of an answer, the Ducks had more questions to face.

“The ball hit his elbow, but at the end of the day, it’s on me,” Moore said. “I gotta take care of the ball and make sure they’re out of the way and get the ball to the receivers.”

By the time they walked into the locker room, down 35-7, the questions were piling too high to see past. Moore had missed multiple receivers downfield, taking sacks or fumbling instead. Harris looked the part, but the Ducks couldn’t compliment him with a robust passing attack since their second drive. Mendoza, for his part, rebounded from the Wyatt sack with a flourishing connection to Elijah Sarratt, who finished the first half with 48 yards on four catches and a score, and a touchdown strike to Charlie Becker (two catches, 48 yards).

Oregon drove near field goal range to end the first half, but Atticus Sappington’s 56-yard attempt was well short.

Out of the break, the Hoosiers went 75 yards in 11 plays, on a drive that squashed any chance of redemption. They got behind the sticks after a false start, but surged ahead. Two third-down conversions later, Indiana led 42-7. Mendoza’s touchdown went to his fourth different receiver of the evening — this time, it was EJ Williams Jr, who strode past Aaron Flowers in coverage.

“They’re complete,” Lanning said. “Again, they do a lot, and they do it really, really well. And there’s not a weakness in their game…you see a really complete team, a well-coached team. They obviously have a ton of belief and deservedly so.”

Hill (five rushes, 86 yards) put the Ducks’ biggest play of the game on tape right afterward, a 71-yard toss rush that he took down to the Hoosiers’ four-yard line. After a pass interference call in the endzone, Harris punched in the Ducks’ second score of the day from the 2-yard line. Moore’s fade ball to Johnson tacked on two more points — 42-15.

After a six-play drive saw the Hoosiers punt for the second time, Moore uncorked a 43-yard third-down completion to McClellan (five catches, 64 yards) to stave off another short series. Instead, the drive ended with a failed fourth-down conversion inside Indiana’s 40-yard line when linebacker Aidan Fisher steamed past his blocker and straight into a ferocious celebration.

The ball bounced back the Hoosiers’ way one more time, when a fourth-quarter James Ferguson-Reynolds punt was blocked and landed at the Oregon 10-yard line. Mendoza turned it into six more points with a third-and-goal throw to Sarratt where he stood in the pocket, read his progressions and found his man at the back of the endzone without an Oregon defense coming near. 

Oregon scored its final points in garbage time with a one-yard score to backup tight end Roger Saleapaga from the 1-yard line. It didn’t change this: for the second-straight season, Oregon’s season ended in a rematch, in the Playoff, in a blowout. Indiana will face No. 10 Miami for its first national championship.

For Lanning, it hurt.

“You hurt for those guys because the world is going to judge everybody in that room based on the result tonight,” Lanning said. “I’m going to judge those guys on the kind of fathers they become some day, the kind of husbands they become some day.

“But in this moment you feel like a failure, right, for them, and they’re not. They’re not failures. These guys won a lot of damn ball games. They’ve had a lot of success. They’ve changed some peoples’ lives, but right now, that moment is going to hurt.”