Insider insists he’s not trolling Notre Dame football fans with Indiana repeat pick

The 2026 college football season is just about 24 hours away from the official kickoff of Week 0. And with insiders, pundits, and college football program loyalists picking their favorites, a football insider has recently picked the Indiana Hoosiers over Notre Dame, and he has no part in trolling the Fighting Irish.

Ahead of the kickoff, The Athletic’s Stewart Mandel, Bruce Feldman, and Ralph D. Russo laid out their sheets on who they think should outsell the rest of the football programs. However, according to Mandel, Indiana is the most probable side to win this season.

“It took me until last year’s Big Ten title game — 25 games into Curt Cignetti’s Indiana tenure — to finally acknowledge the once-woeful Hoosiers were a full-blown juggernaut. Now I’ve fully swung in the other direction. Cignetti, like his one-time mentor Nick Saban, has the secret sauce to reload and remain dominant,” he said in his report.

As he mentioned, Cignetti has had a historic run with the Hoosiers. Hired at the end of 2023, Cignetti helped Indiana break a program record with 11 victories and a playoff appearance in 2024, also his first year.

Last season, during 2025, he led the Hoosiers to a 16-0 season run that ultimately resulted in Indiana’s first NCAA championship, defeating the Miami Hurricanes.

“Indiana is strong on both lines of scrimmage and has three starter-level running backs, two stud receivers and DBs galore. New QB1 Josh Hoover might not be Fernando Mendoza, but Cignetti will have him ready to rock come Big Ten play. If I’m right, Indiana will become the Big Ten’s first repeat national champion since Minnesota in 1940-41,” Mandel further added.

However, when Mandel had to answer if he’s trolling Notre Dame fans with his pick, he had a clear cut answer.

“Absolutely not,” he wrote. “Clearly I’m all in on Marcus Freeman’s Irish in picking them to reach the national championship game for the second time in three seasons… But the Irish happen to draw Indiana in the championship game. Cignetti canceling the teams’ home-and-home and his snarky joke about it could absolutely blow up in his face.”

A little different from how Mendel picked his favorite, Notre Dame is among the popular football programs to win a championship this season. Though football fans also want some rivalry action against Ohio State, the prediction and speculation market is running at an all-time high.

Feldman, on the other hand, named Notre Dame as his pick for the championship.

“With a lot of chatter in NFL circles about the winning coach becoming the hottest commodity on the carousel, Freeman’s Irish give fans their first national title since 1988, going 15-0. It’s not quite as much of a gauntlet as Indiana survived in its 16-game season, but Notre Dame folks couldn’t care less what everyone else might be thinking,” Feldman wrote.

That being said, with college football action starting soon, fans will have a busy schedule juggling between pro and college games.

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