Three years ago, in December of 2023, the new head coach of the Indiana football team, Curt Cignetti, was introduced at an Indiana basketball game. When handed the microphone Cignetti was quick to rally the crowd, shouting “Purdue sucks!” The Indiana stands, filled with bitter hatred for their rival Purdue, erupted in cheers. But Cignetti wasn’t done. He followed with, “So does Michigan and Ohio State!” This was followed by more applause from the Indiana fans.

While the fans cheered at Cignetti’s statement, every single person in the stadium knew that it was a completely outrageous thing to say. Heading into 2025, Indiana had the most all-time losses in Division I college football history, with a staggering 715 losses. At the time of Cignetti’s hiring, they had only had three seasons with 7+ wins in the past 30 years.

And here was their brand new head coach, discrediting the illustrious programs of Michigan and Ohio State. Meanwhile, Ohio State had racked up a 10+ win season every season since 2005 (except 2020, where the year was shortened due to the COVID pandemic) and Michigan was coming off of an undefeated season and a national championship. It was completely ludicrous.

Three years later, in 2026, Indiana had an undefeated 16-0 season and a national championship of their own. Their QB, Fernando Mendoza, won the Heisman award and will certainly be the #1 overall pick in the NFL Draft.

At first glance, just one belief comes to mind: this shouldn’t be happening. This should be impossible. In just two seasons, Cignetti transformed Indiana from the debatedly worst program in college football history to national champions. It’s something out of a video game or Hollywood movie. And the question must be asked: how could this happen?

The first thing to look at is the man behind it all: Cignetti. He played college football from 1979-1982 as a quarterback at West Virginia, although he saw practically no playing time. Immediately following the end of his collegiate career, he entered the coaching world, hopping around as an assistant coach for many years. Cignetti’s first “notable” stop was with North Carolina State, where he interchanged between QBs coach, TEs coach, and recruiting coordinator from 2000-2006. NC State was extremely successful during this time period, and Cignetti coached QB Philip Rivers, who would go on to be an extremely successful player in the NFL.

Following his tenure in NC State, Cignetti got a huge opportunity: being the WRs Coach/Recruiting Coordinator at the University of Alabama, working with legendary head coach Nick Saban, from 2007-2010. Cignetti was a member of a legendary Alabama team in 2009 that went undefeated and won the National Championship. As the recruiting coordinator, Cignetti recruited stars such as WR Julio Jones, RB Mark Ingram and LB D’Onta Hightower. This position gave Cignetti great experience recruiting and also the experience of working with a championship contender.

Following his success at Alabama, Cignetti got his first head coaching offer for the D2 team, Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Cignetti’s father, Frank Cignetti, coached at IUP from 1986-2005 and led them to 13 DII playoff appearances. Years later, the younger Cignetti regained the family’s reins to IUP, and he coached the team from 2011-2016. Cignetti led IUP to four 10+ win seasons in that span.

After his success at IUP, Cignetti took a step up another level, going to the Division I FCS school Elon. Cignetti’s success continued as he coached at Elon from 2017-2018 and led the team to the playoffs both years. Cignetti then moved to the more illustrious FCS program James Madison. Cignetti led James Madison to the playoffs three straight years before Cignetti once again stepped up another level; however, this time he wasn’t leaving his team. James Madison had been promoted to the FBS level and was now playing in the Sun Belt conference. However, the team’s success did not dip, as they went 8-3 in 2022 and 11-1 in 2023.

From there, Cignetti was hired at Indiana, where he began his generational rebuild. The turnaround was immediate as Indiana went 11-2 in 2024, then capped off this elite run with the revolutionary 2025 season.

So what was the point of going through Cignetti’s long career? Well, where Cignetti comes from creates a key part of his and Indiana’s identity.

First off, Cignetti gained experience working with elite programs, allowing him to learn how to build a winning culture, which would be very important when he arrived at Indiana and had to take the culture out of the dumps. But he hasn’t just worked with these elite programs: he’s been at the bottom, too, coaching Division II schools like IUP. He got worked with guys that everybody else passed up, who had to use every opportunity they had to prove themselves. Because of that, they were dedicated hard-workers. This will be revisited later.

Second, his stint as the recruiting coordinator at Alabama developed his elite recruiting abilities. At Alabama he was one of the best recruiters in the world and found some of the best players in the world. This experience shaped Cignetti into the talent-finder he is today. Rebuilding a program like he did is impossible without being a generational recruiter. There’s evidence to back up how good his recruiting talent is, too: you can see it by taking a look at his national championship-winning team.

Recruiting for Indiana is undoubtedly much different nowadays than it was in the late 2000s back at Alabama. Obviously, Indiana is not Alabama, so Cignetti couldn’t just grab five-star recruits because he hadn’t built an elite program yet. But there was one thing that made the rebuild of Indiana possible: the transfer portal.

Looking at the national championship team, you can see just how big an impact the portal had to this team. Out of Indiana’s 22 starters on offense and defense, 15 transferred in prior to the 2024 or 2025 season. This includes, but is not limited to:

QB Mendoza, 3535 passing yards, 41 TDs, 6 INTs, won the Heisman

RB Roman Hemby, 1120 rushing yards, 7 TDs

WR Elijah Sarrat, 65 receptions, 830 yards, 15 TDs

TE Riley Nowakowski, 32 receptions, 387 yards, 2 TDs

C Pat Coogan, 98.9% pass blocking efficiency

EDGE Kellan Wyatt, 27 tackles, 8 TFLs, 2.5 sacks

WLB Rolijah Hardy, 102 tackles, 15 TFLs, 8 sacks

CB D’Angelo Ponds, 61 tackles, 4 TFLs, 2 INTs, 11 pass deflections

NB Devan Boykin, 59 tackles, 6 TFLs, 2 INTs, 5 pass deflections

S Louis Moore, 88 tackles, 2.5 TFLs, 6 INTs, 4 pass deflections

And that’s just starters. There were many transfer backups that had a huge contribution to the team. This includes:

RB Kaelon Black, 1040 rushing yards, 10 TD

WR Jonathan Brady, 14 receptions, 115 yards, 3 TDs

TE Holden Staes, 7 receptions, 62 yards, 2 TDs

EDGE Stephen Daley, 38 tackles, 19 TFLs, 5 sacks

DT Daniel Ratcliffe, 13 tackles, 5 TFLs, 1.5 sacks

It is easy to see how significant of an impact the transfer portal had on this team. It’s also clear how much Indiana values experience. Per The Athletic, the 920 career starts among Indiana’s players was more than any other team in the college football playoff. 20 of Indiana’s 22 starters were juniors and seniors.

However, Indiana’s transfer portal success wouldn’t exactly stand out on a purely stat sheet. Indiana was 25th for transfer portal rankings in 2025 and 30th in 2024, per 247 sports. Undoubtedly impressive for a program that was historically awful, but it didn’t appear like championship-level production.

This is because, frankly, Indiana was not a championship-level team. Cignetti had to recruit the leftovers or guys that slipped through the cracks from the big teams; he had experience dealing with these players from his stints coaching at smaller schools. Because of this recruiting style, Indiana developed a very important trait as a team that is evident in some of its bigger stars.

The biggest example is the Heisman-winning Mendoza, who started games for California from 2023-2024. His stats were nothing crazy, racking up 4712 yards, 30 TDs and 16 INTs during that time period. However, Mendoza stood out in things that couldn’t be measured on the stat sheet; his now-famous positive attitude, his hardworking personality, and his dedication to improving. Mendoza is so focused on football that he famously claimed he doesn’t have any social media apps on his phone except YouTube, which he only uses to watch football highlights, and LinkedIn, a social media app where people can showcase their careers.

He was rated as the 4th best quarterback in the 2025 transfer class, with the QBs ahead of him going to historically more illustrious programs such as Miami and Oklahoma. However, with the help of Indiana’s coaching staff, featuring Cignetti and offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan, Mendoza was able to rise to the top. His toughness and determination to be the best were evident in the game-deciding play in the national championship, where Mendoza powered through defenders and gave it everything he had to dive into the endzone and score a 12-yard TD run. He was a tough underdog that wanted it more than anybody else. Pretty soon, he’ll be updating his LinkedIn profile to read “Quarterback of the Las Vegas Raiders” as it is almost guaranteed Las Vegas will select him with the #1 overall pick in the NFL Draft.

One of Mendoza’s main targets, Sarratt, was also a huge underdog. Sarratt was a 0-star recruit out of high school, meaning he was not being scouted by large programs, and he committed to the FCS school St. Francis in 2022. Sarratt stood out as a freshman, hauling in 42 receptions for 700 yards and 13 TDs. The young star caught Cignetti’s attention, and Cignetti was willing to take a chance on him, as Sarratt transferred to James Madison to play under Cignetti in 2023. Sarratt exploded onto the FBS scene, catching 82 passes for 1191 yards and eight TDs in 2023, and catching 53 passes for 957 yards and 8 TDs in 2024. Sarratt followed Cignetti to Indiana in 2025, where he formed a powerful duo with Mendoza, catching 15 TDs. In four years, Sarratt went from a zero-star prospect to a starter in the national championship; it was clear he was the underdog that never should’ve been, but in that moment, he used his resilience and toughness to rise to the top.

While Indiana certainly has many uber-talented players, the thing that stands out the most is the players’ toughness and dedication. They want to win games, and they want it more than anybody else. That’s what happens when you take the guys that are slept on, guys that everybody else passed up. They’re glad you gave them a chance, and they make the most of it.

There is a statistic that college football analysts have been bringing up a lot recently after Indiana’s success called Blue Chip Ratio. This refers to “Blue-Chip” recruits, which are four or five-star recruits. It has been common in recent history for nearly all championship contenders, and especially championship winners, to have a Blue Chip Ratio of at least 50%+.

Indiana had just 9.8%, with seven total Blue Chip players on roster.

Compare that to other, more illustrious programs in the college football playoff this year, and you’ll see vastly different results. Ohio State, the 2024 CFB Champions, had 89% with 66 Blue Chip players, with Georgia also having 66 Blue Chippers. Indiana had by far the least out of any Power 4 (four biggest conferences in CFB) team in the playoffs; Texas Tech had the second-least with 24%. Indiana’s 9.8% is even less than a program like Colorado (21%) who went 3-9 this year.

This Blue Chip ratio is actually a measurable stat to show how programs recruit. Big programs like Ohio State might have the better classes on paper because of measurable statistics and recruiting rankings. However, what a statistic can’t accommodate or anticipate is the hidden aspects of the game: toughness, mentality, etc.

So now, the looming question is: could this masterclass in roster-building, culture-changing and championship-winning be repeated?

Indiana is already at work to repeat their success, with the 8th best transfer portal class and the 20th best overall class. They have notably found their next QB to replace Mendoza: Josh Hoover out of Texas Christian University, who has 31 career starts and is one of the most experienced quarterbacks in college football. EDGE Tobi Osunsanmi, who will be entering his 5th year of experience, transferred to Indiana after a four-sack season. That’s just to name a few, as Indiana has 17 total incoming transfers.

Obviously, other teams will be searching for the secret to Indiana’s success. So using statistical criteria, is it possible to predict the next Indiana?

There are a few criteria that teams need to be sorted by. They must have a 9.8% or less Blue Chip Ratio. They must have a transfer portal class in the Top 25. They must be in a Power 4 conference. They must have a head coach that was hired sometime in the past two years.

When you sort by that criteria, only two teams stand out:

California Golden Bears: 9% Blue Chip Ratio, 14th ranked transfer portal class, member of the ACC conference, hired head coach Tosh Lupoi following the 2025 season.

Oklahoma State Cowboys: 8% Blue Chip Ratio, 7th ranked transfer portal class, member of the Big XII conference, hired head coach Eric Morris following the 2025 season.

Oklahoma State stands out the most due to the similarities between Morris and Cignetti. Morris has experience coaching at the DII school, Incarnate Word, from 2018-2021. Morris is most famous for being the head coach at North Texas University from 2023-2025. He transformed North Texas into a Group of 5 powerhouse, going 12-2 in 2025. He also has experience being part of an elite program, playing his college career at Texas Tech under head coach Mike Leach. The most striking similarity is in the portal. When Cignetti transferred from James Madison, a large number of James Madison players followed him from Indiana. The same happened with Morris, who brought 16 players with him from North Texas to Oklahoma State. In total, Oklahoma State has a mind-boggling 53 incoming transfers. Undoubtedly, big changes are coming to the Oklahoma State program.

And if Oklahoma State wins the national championship in 2027… you heard it here first.