The national champion Indiana Hoosiers have just thrust themselves into the national spotlight in less than 2 years. Coach Cignetti and his staff have just did the unthinkable by beating the Miami Hurricanes of all teams. The Hurricanes did the exact same thing a little over 40 years ago by defeating “The Greatest Football Team Ever” The 1983-84 University of Nebraska Cornhuskers. The difference between the 1983-84 Miami Hurricanes and 2025-26 Indiana Hoosiers is the Hurricanes were the most sought after and talented group of kids from the state of Florida and in the nation. The Indiana Hoosiers are built from under recruited talent and solid 3 star & 4 star talented transfers. With NIL and the transfer portal, Indiana played many of the toughest teams in the Big Ten and the nation on their schedule and beat them. Some of those wins were very convincing, for example the Hoosiers last defeat of the Alabama Crimson Tide.

The arrival of Coach Curt Cignetti from James Madison was a blessing at the right time. The Indiana Hoosiers has just went 0-12 before he had arrived at Indiana. The type of players that he recruited to play at Indiana were the same type of players that he had playing for him at James Madison and some players from JMU did transfer to Indiana with him. Junior defensive back Jamari Sharpe, a Miami native who played at Miami Northwestern High School and was not recrutied by the University of Miami, but he committed to the Indiana Hoosiers and would make a game winning interception in the national championship game with less than a minute on the clock. For those, who are familiar with Cignetti’s James Madison style of football; it was a fast and physical brand of football that is traditionally not known at Indiana University. That brand of football is known at Ohio State, Alabama, Georgia, and a few others. This change in philosophy and style of play was crucial in the building of the team as far as personnel and strategy against every opponent they faced this season and achieving a 16-0 record. Recruiting for the Hoosiers will get better soon with this new national championship trophy on the mantle in Bloomington. The best recruits in the state of Indiana now have a reason to stay in state and play close to home and not go to Notre Dame or Purdue. Indiana is known to have quiet recruiting classes, but at the same time the 2 most recent classes weren’t “quiet”, but the classes were notable because these classes were the blueprint of what built this current national championship team.

The big named programs that everyone speaks of such the Michigans, LSUs, Notre Dames, the USC’s, Texas A&Ms, and the Oregons of the world are fighting the high dollar NIL fight and transfer portal arms race. Now, it is been proven that the transfer portal has somewhat leveled the playing field. For example, schools like Indiana, Vanderbilt, Illinois, BYU, James Madison, and Tulane were cases where it was very evident that the portal give smaller programs more talent and depth outside the traditional means of recruiting. These schools were able to compete on the field immediately just like Colorado was able to in their 2nd season under Coach Deion Sanders. Sanders took on a squad that went 1-11 2 seasons in a row prior ro his arrival. Many of Sanders players were transfers from Jackson State that included Heisman trophy winner Travis Hunter and both his sons Shilo and Shedeur Sanders were just the main ones just to name a few.

What Indiana is doing is nothing short of amazing with the wise use of the transfer portal, solid recruiting classes, a great coaching staff from the Saban coaching tree and a university that took a chance and believed in this coach’s ability. Indiana was a “cellar dweller” not just in the Big Ten, but in all of college football and now in less than a year and a half the Indiana Hoosiers are now national champions. This team literally did more with less talented players, but when players are solid, disciplined, willing to work, and want "it” more; you can do a lot with a little. This Indiana team has been David the whole season taking on different forms of Goliath every week and coming out undeterred, defeated, and unconquered.