The Indiana Hoosiers are the 2026 College Football Playoff national champions. Let that sink in for a moment. I can just hear Michael J. Fox’s voice as Marty McFly from “Back to the Future” sarcastically laughing out loud, “The Hoosiers? National champions in football? Yeah, like that’s ever going to happen.”
It’s a Cinderella story for the ages. The Indiana Hoosiers, one of the losingest teams in college football history, goes from zero to hero in two short years. I mean this is the stuff of a Hollywood movie. Hoosiers Part II: A Football Story.
You have the enigmatic coach Curt Cignetti, who chose the coaching path less traveled and it truly did make all the difference. He rolled the dice, went against the analytics and was gutsy enough to make unpredictable calls on two nail-biting fourth down conversions and several crucial third down conversions with the game on the line. That’s what championship coaches do. They use analytics as a tool but trust their instincts and intuition in the moment.
You have the story of the incredibly likeable and humble quarterback Fernando Mendoza, who grew up 20 minutes away from the University of Miami. As a two-star high school player, he was rejected even as a potential walk-on at Miami and ended up defeating them for the national championship with the “Mendoza Leap.”
It could be considered the greatest feel-good story in sports history.
I want so badly to believe that narrative, but I can’t, because it’s simply not the whole story. It was certainly an uplifting, underdog story for the group of outcasts to beat so many top programs and go 16-0. But, for me, it’s not really the feel-good story one might expect.
I hate to be that guy, but I’m going to be that guy. This one may even deserve the dreaded asterisk.
The problem I have is that a few years ago, before Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) and the Transfer Portal (TP) turned college football into “prollegiate” football, this would never have occurred.
I don’t want to take anything away from what IU, Coach Cignetti and that gritty group of men (emphasis on men) accomplished. They earned this national championship fair and square. At least as today’s NCAA rules (or lack thereof) allow.
Why did IU rise to the top so fast?
The IU administration simply outsmarted all the blue bloods. Period.
- They hired an incredibly smart and (until recently) undervalued head coach in Curt Cignetti. All he did was win and win championships, everywhere he coached.
- Coach Cignetti, with the IU administration’s approval and support, played the new NIL/TP era player acquisition and recruiting game smarter than anyone else.
- They even did it with less NIL money than most other CFP teams because they went after players who were ranked lower coming out of high school but had proved themselves at another school. These players had a chip on their shoulder for being overlooked by the big-name schools and were ready and eager to play for Cignetti.
- It was also, essentially, a case of men playing against boys, as IU’s average age was 23. The average at programs around the country is slightly over 20, with 71% under the age of 21. Heck the NFL’s Green Bay Packers professional football team average age is 25. “Prollegiate” athletics has become a real thing.
Compare Cignetti to former Penn State coach James Franklin and you won’t find Cignetti handing out NIL money based on longevity on the roster and on recruiting rankings. Cignetti raised the money (thanks to Mark Cuban and his fellow IU donors) and more wisely used the portal and NIL money to attract a team of proven older players who were less likely to succumb to the pressures of CFP-caliber football.
I am a big Curt Cignetti fan. He’s part Yinzer, having been born in Pittsburgh, and his coaching roots have Pennsylvania written all over them. His father, Frank Sr., was a Hall of Fame coach and AD at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. IUP was also Curt’s first head coaching job, a move that pundits said was a career killer at the time.
So, I really don’t want to take away anything from what Cignetti and IU accomplished this past football season. I even have a soft spot in my heart for the state of Indiana, as I have some coaching roots of my own there, having coached hockey at Culver Military Academy. It was the same year (1986-87) that the film Hoosiers premiered and IU won a NCAA basketball championship under Bobby Knight.
I just want to be clear: It’s tough for me to compare what IU’s 2026 football team did to the legendary (and mythical) basketball team underdogs from Hickory High School did in Hoosiers.
As ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit described today’s NIL/TP era best following the game: “It’s a new world; a new era we live in.” Yes, it is — unfortunately, in my view. It doesn’t mean we have to like it. I’m kind of tired of everyone rolling over and saying, “The toothpaste ain’t going back in the tube so get used to it.”
Why? Why do I have to get used to it as it is currently being executed? Where are the leaders in university administrations and their athletic departments to fix what so many refer to openly as the mess that college sports, especially football, have become? Just because the toothpaste won’t go back in the tube doesn’t mean we can’t switch to another brand.
I did a self-imposed boycott of the CFP, not watching any games until the semifinals. But as much as I dislike what’s happened to college sports, I just love the games, and I so badly want someone or some group to fix it. I’m not saying we can go all the way back to before the landmark court cases that ushered in NIL and the TP. But my gosh we sure as heck can make some much-needed adjustments to put an end to the hypocrisy and fix NIL and TP. Geez, the starting QB for Miami, Carson Beck, even admitted he hasn’t really been a college student for the past 2 years!
By the way, what conference seems to be griping about this seismic shift the most? The SEC, where football is bigger than life; heck it’s bigger than religion. There hasn’t been an SEC school in the national championship game in three years, for goodness sakes. The status quo has changed and the SEC schools don’t like it. Why has it changed? Money, period.
Fox Sports analyst Joel Klatt said, “The second or third biggest booster at some SEC schools owns a car dealership. The same booster at some Big Ten schools owns the car manufacturer.” That’s right, queue the audience, here comes “Shark Tank” star Mark Cuban to help change Indiana’s fortunes forever! Yup, my boosters are richer than your boosters!
I can only imagine what my sports ethics class professors at Penn State and Kent State might be thinking. “How did we get to this point?”
OK, enough with the sarcasm. Somebody with a conscience please fix this. Please put in the rules we all know should be in place for NIL and the Transfer Portal before we lose this very American thing we once knew as college athletics.
Until then, I will stand by my vote for the greatest feel-good story in the history of sports. That gutsy group of amateur athletes from our 1980 Team USA gold medal-winning hockey team that ironically upset a team full of “pro-amateurs” from the Soviet Union. That was a Miracle we can all agree on.
