MIAMI -- What began with an "irrational belief," Indiana center Pat Coogan said, ended with the Hoosiers' first football national championship on Monday, and perhaps, a new world order in the typically staid sport of college football.
Coach Curt Cignetti called Indiana's championship a "paradigm shift," one that opens the door to any program willing to invest to climb to the top of the sport, just as the Hoosiers did.
"People can cling to an old way of thinking, categorizing teams as this or that or conferences as this or that," Cignetti said, "or they can adjust to the new world, the shift in the power dynamic in college football today."
Indiana became college football's first first-time national champion in 29 years with a 27-21 victory against Miami, but that hardly begins to capture just how unexpected this climb has been. Entering this season, Indiana had the most losses in the sport's history, and the Hoosiers won it all despite a roster that featured just eight blue-chip recruits and a host of contributors who'd followed Cignetti from James Madison two years earlier.
The last new champion in the sport was Florida in 1996-97, but those Gators were still among the best programs in the sport, with a host of stars like Danny Wuerffel, Ike Hilliard and Fred Taylor. Florida had finished in the AP top 10 five straight years before its first title and had won nine games or more in nine of the prior 13 seasons.
Before last year's sudden rise in Cignetti's first season in Bloomington, Indiana hadn't had a nine-win campaign since 1967, and the Hoosiers' 16 wins this season were more than the program compiled between 2020 and 2023 combined.
"To look back at what happened to Indiana previous to us coming -- 10, 20, 50 years ago -- was strictly a lack of commitment from the top," Cignetti said. "Nothing else. And we have the commitment [now]."
The Cinderella story of Indiana's rise is remarkable in American sports, but Cignetti believes there was no magic trick that put the Hoosiers over the top. It was simply a matter of belief and dedication to a process that had also worked for him at Elon and James Madison.
"There's got to be a lot of like-minded individuals who come together for a common purpose, and sometimes that belief has to be a little bit irrational," Coogan said. "Especially in a place that hasn't had success like Indiana. I've seen it, and I've seen the way this place has been characterized, and when Coach Cig got here, he believed, and he got people to believe. Sometimes people laughed at him and thought he was crazy -- but that's irrational belief. You've got to get people to buy in and believe in the mission."
If Indiana's unlikely rise offers hope to every "sleeping giant" program in the country, it also provided further evidence of a further shift in college football's power structure. After nearly two decades of dominance, the SEC hasn't had a representative in the college football national championship game in three years. Instead, the Big Ten now has a third different champion in the last three seasons, following Michigan and Ohio State.
"The results speak for themselves," Cignetti said. "Those are facts. No one can predict the future, but I know we have a huge TV contract, and all the institutions make a lot of money, and they'll be a lot of good teams next year in the league."
Indiana figures to be one of them, but Cignetti stopped short of predicting a dynasty for the Hoosiers.
Quarterback Fernando Mendoza and a host of senior leaders will all be gone next season, and while Cignetti said this season's success proves anything is possible, reaching the mountaintop again and again might not be.
"Perfection is impossible to attain on a consistent basis," Cignetti said. "But we'll continue to take it one day at a time, one meeting at a time, one practice at a time, and just keep improving and committing to the process and showing up prepared, trying to put it on the field, and see where it takes us."
