Why Curt Cignetti’s Indiana is sports’ greatest impossible dream

Indiana was the losingest program in the history of college football.

For over a century, the Hoosiers weren’t just a David among Goliaths; they were the team the Goliaths scheduled for a light Saturday afternoon warm-up.

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But as we sit here in January 2026, the world has tilted on its axis.

Head coach Curt Cignetti hasn’t just fixed a broken program; he has performed a miracle.

With Indiana sitting at 15-0 and standing exactly sixty minutes away from a National Championship, we are witnessing the most stunning turnaround in American sports history.

To find a parallel, you have to look across the Atlantic to the 2016 Leicester City “5000-to-1” miracle in the English Premier League. Like Leicester, Indiana entered this era with a history of merely trying to survive.

They were bottom-feeders—nobodies, not even an afterthought in the sport.

Before Cignetti arrived, IU had won exactly zero bowl games in over three decades. They were a program defined by almosts and never-beens.

While Leicester’s rise was a singular lightning strike, what makes Indiana’s climb more impressive is the systemic dominance. This isn’t a team squeaking by with luck. They are a machine.

In 2024, Cignetti led them to an 11-2 record and a playoff berth.

A year later, he did the unthinkable: an undefeated regular season, a Big Ten Championship win over Ohio State, and dominant victories over blue-blood programs like Alabama in the Rose Bowl and Oregon in the Peach Bowl.

He inexplicably made it look easy.

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When Cignetti took the job, he didn’t ask for patience. He didn’t talk about a five-year plan. He famously told recruits and fans to “Google me”—a brash, confident nod to his history of winning everywhere from IUP to James Madison.

He leveraged the transfer portal masterfully upon his arrival in Bloomington. Bringing a core of his James Madison players with him wasn’t just about scheme. It was about importing a win-now DNA into a locker room that had forgotten what winning felt like.

Every year, college football tells us that the Goliaths—the Georgias, the Ohios States, the Alabamas—have built moats too deep to cross. They have the 5-star recruits, the endless NIL collectives, and the weight of history.

Indiana has none of that. They have no 5-star recruits. They have a coach who refuses to acknowledge the natural order and hierarchy of the sport.

By beating the giants at their own game, physically dominating their opponents, getting elite quarterback play from Heisman-winner Fernando Mendoza and a defense ranked No. 2 in the nation, Indiana has proven that the “David” story isn’t just a myth.

In fact, they have proved that they are no David.

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If Indiana finishes this journey on January 19th against Miami, it won’t just be a great sports story.

It will be the definitive proof that in the modern era of college sports, no program is unsalvageable. Winning makes believers of us all, and Cignetti has done just that, times one hundred.

Bloomington isn’t just a basketball town anymore. It’s the center of the football universe.

The greatest turnaround in American sports history is nearly complete, and as it turns out, we didn’t even need to Google it—the whole world is watching.

One win away. Google that.