The Blueprint
How Indiana Football figured out this new era of college sports.
Indiana won a national championship on Monday night. Let that sink in for a second.
The Indiana Hoosiers beat the Miami Hurricanes 27-21 in a game that was much closer and more entertaining than I had thought possible. I said, to anyone who would listen, that Indiana would be up three touchdowns at the end of the first quarter. I was wrong. For three and a half quarters, both teams played a nearly even matchup.
Then the play that will be on posters forever happened. Curt Cignetti called a relatively surprising QB run on fourth-and-4 from the Miami 12-yard line. Fernando Mendoza put his head down and changed Indiana football history forever.
You can watch that play a hundred times, and it won’t get old. Mendoza faking the pass, cutting right, accelerating past one defender, then two, then lowering his shoulder, spinning, and refusing to go down as he leaped and stretched the ball across the goal line.
That was the play.
The fourth-down call that sealed the game didn’t involve the Football Gods or a lucky bounce. It was a calculated coach’s decision. Cignetti could’ve kicked a field goal. That’s what Miami Head Coach Mario Cristobal did earlier in the game when he settled for a 50-yard field goal attempt that doinked off the upright instead of going for it on fourth-and 2.
Cignetti called a timeout, made the call, and trusted Mendoza, the Heisman Trophy winner, to take it to the house.
Indiana. National Champions.
Curt Cignetti built something nobody thought possible in Bloomington. A 16-0 season. A perfect record that puts them alongside the 1894 Yale Bulldogs, which is a comparison and a sentence nobody expected to write about Indiana football.
Cignetti’s plan wasn’t complicated. He found older, experienced players who wanted one more shot at glory. He gave them the resources and structure to succeed. He demanded and then trusted them to execute. The transfer portal and NIL money made it possible.
It helped to have Mark Cuban writing checks and John Mellencamp donating to their indoor practice facility, but it was Cignetti who best understood this era of college football.
The average age on a Division I college football team typically hovers around 20 to 22. The average age of Indiana’s squad is 23. By way of comparison, the average age on the Green Bay Packers is 26, and the league average is 27.
Three-star 23-year-olds are going to be better than five-star 18-year-olds. Just ask Oregon and Miami.
The Big Ten Conference now has three straight national championships with three different teams: Ohio State, Michigan, and now Indiana. The conference everyone loved to mock for being slow and boring just proved it’s the best in college football. The depth of talent, the quality of coaching, and the resources available to programs across the conference have created an environment where even long-time bottom-feeders can compete for bowl wins, playoff berths, and national titles.
Indiana handed every Division 1 college football program a blueprint. You don’t need to be a blue blood. You don’t need decades of tradition. You need a coach who understands the new rules of college football and isn’t afraid to use them.
Brett Bielema and Illinois should be taking notes.
Both schools play in the same conference. They have access to the same transfer portal, NIL opportunities, and recruiting grounds. There’s no obvious reason why Illinois can’t build what Cignetti built in Indiana.
Bret Bielema is the best coach Illinois Football has had in forever. His teams achieved consecutive seasons with 9+ wins for the first time in program history (2024: 10-3, 2025: 9-4). Won back-to-back bowl games for the first time since 2010-11. Developed numerous players for the NFL, including standout defensive backs Devon Witherspoon, Sydney Brown, and Quan Martin. Lastly, he set records for wins in a two-year period (19) and most wins in a head coach’s first five seasons at Illinois.
As a fan of Illinois Athletics, I’m ecstatic. These last few years have been a true renaissance for Illinois Football. However, just 168 miles away, Indiana Football put the rest of college football on notice. In just two years.
Does Bielema get it? I think so. The future is bright at Illinois.
As for Curt Cignetti’s future, what does he do now? He’s reached the peak. There’s nowhere to go but down. Every season from here will be measured against perfection, which is an impossible standard. He’ll either leave for a bigger job or stay and watch the expectations crush him. That’s the price of success in college football. You get one perfect moment, and then you spend the rest of your career trying to recreate it.
For Indiana fans, none of that matters right now. They’ve got a national championship. A perfect season. A moment that will define their program for generations. Everything after is gravy.
The new era of college football is here. Transfer portal mercenaries, NIL money, and programs and coaches who understand how to weaponize all of it. Indiana proved the system works if you’re willing to embrace it fully. Other schools will try to copy them. Most will fail. A few might succeed.
Illinois has the chance to be one of the few to take full advantage. In many ways, they already have.
The blueprint is right there.
Be seeing you.
Did Curt Cignetti and Indiana change CFB forever? Here’s what could actually happen next
I wrote my piece above around the same time as Will Leitch’s here. He goes a bit further and talks about what other programs might do in light of Indiana’s historic win.
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