Hoosiers (2026)

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Where does Indiana rank among the greatest sports stories this century? How about ever? That is the question to ask this week, after the obvious precursor: can they finish the storybook?

All last year, I was openly skeptical of Indiana. They played a relatively easy schedule, and when they did run into top-five teams (Notre Dame and Ohio State), they lost both times. I thought they were pretty clearly fraudulent, and their fans, pretty clearly ridiculous in insisting they belonged in the CFP.

That skepticism has aged poorly. They’re the real deal.

And yes, of course it is possible that Miami pulls off the upset. Everyone picking against them in their own stadium certainly lines up for the Hurricanes. Coach Cristobal has a crowded bulletin board this week.

But I’m less concerned with whether Indiana wins on Monday than how quickly this all happened. The turnaround defies belief. They were, by the most obvious metric — losses — the very worst football team unlucky enough to be playing the sport at the FBS level. A team that would’ve been relegated to FCS a long time ago if we did that sort of thing on this side of the Atlantic.

And remember that record I mentioned against top-five teams? Yeah, so — in the history of the program, prior to this year, their combined record against AP top-five teams was 1-72.

Indiana was a clear basketball school, one of the few where football could be an afterthought. (If you were that bad, you wouldn’t want to dwell on it much either.)

And now they’re one of the best teams in the history of the sport? Proud owners of the second-biggest win differential of all time, second only to Jameis Winston’s 2013 FSU Seminoles. I’m not sure the Hoosiers are that good, on that 2019 LSU flow. They don’t appear to have the same level of NFL talent.

And I think that all makes it more impressive, not less. I’m astounded by the depth on this team. “Conglomerate of individuals” indeed. They gave the Rose Bowl MVP to the whole offensive line, and they damn well deserved it. They’re out there bulldozing the likes of Alabama and Oregon.

I heard this on the ESPN broadcast and it stopped me cold. I knew there’d be a talent disparity, I just didn’t think it would be so wide. Oregon has 55 four- or five-star recruits on this year’s roster, whereas Indiana has 8. That’s not very close at all, for those keeping track at home.

I’m astounded by the makeup of this staff. Curt Cignetti, who might just be the most self-assured man walking the face of the earth today, has kept the same offensive and defensive coordinator from stop to stop since taking his head coaching job at IUP, the school at which his father had a legendary 20-year career. (Sidenote: we played them in rugby back in the day. They were pretty good.)

Some of the best players on this team were, like Cignetti and his staff, transfers from James Madison. They’re not an also-ran or anything, but they didn’t draw on the typical SEC/Big 10 talent pools to fill their roster.

Even Fernando Mendoza, a near-certainty to go first overall to the Las Vegas Raiders this year (a match that will never not be funny), came into college as a 2-star recruit. He started his career at Cal, and probably could’ve gone just about anywhere when he decided to head to Bloomington. He bought into Cignetti, and he’s gotta be feeling pretty good about that decision.

For Cignetti is the first true king of the transfer portal era, which is precisely how this is happening. That part is entirely straightforward. Whereas this same process might’ve taken four or five years, you can basically flip a whole-ass roster overnight these days. You can also grab almost exclusively juniors, seniors, super-seniors and super-duper seniors to make sure your pro-style environment has adults in the room.

What’s interesting is the continuity everywhere else. In the framework itself, the system, Cignetti’s ruthless insistence on process over everything. It’s obvious to me, as someone with very little formal football experience or knowledge, that the coaching staff is having a profound impact on the product on the field.

It’s the clearest line I’ve seen in a while between the personality of a coach and the play of a team.

Cignetti first came to my attention, and probably many of us casuals, as the guy who, in his introductory press conference at Indiana, said quite-matter-of-factly as he instructed a reporter to Google him: “I win.”

One more to go. Guess we’re about to see.

⚾ The Dodgers getting Kyle Tucker made me wonder, as I think I was too young to truly remember: were the evilest of the Evil Empire Yankees ever this good at signing fucking everybody? Like, everybody? This feels unique, and I’m pretty sure it is, but I don’t want to be prisoner to the moment. 4 for $240M is insane by the way. My friends and I were joking about whether the World Series MVP is now the hardest award to win in the sport. With that roster, you’d have to think about it. Think we have a favorite for next year.

📚 Finished Endling this week and loved it. Just loved it. Super creative in ways that I am loathe to spoil, but that’s a winner. I’m working my way through An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine, a novel written from the perspective of an old woman looking back on how she made it through the Lebanese Civil War and the Israeli occupation of Beirut that followed in ‘82. I wrote my Master’s thesis about the latter, which drew me in in the first place, but the voice Alameddine establishes from the first page is pretty incredible. Another winner.

🎰 This latest sports betting case is bonkers. I haven’t had time to go all the way through it, but I have had time to read a couple snippets from the indictments. My favorite exchange:

“Person #13 responded to defendant SMITH in a text message after the game and explained that South Carolina State was playing so poorly that it was difficult for Person #13 to ensure that Coppin State lose the game by more than the point spread. ‘[T]hey [South Carolina State] so ass I couldn’t even keep they lead together[.] im sorry for th[a]t bro[.] I try to tell my [Coppin State] teammates to chill and all th[a]t bro[.] I swear I tried everything in my power second half.”

Guess it didn’t work out this time. But if we only dare to dream, someday, we too can shave points off a South Carolina State vs. Coppin State basketball game. That’s America.

🇺🇸 I won’t belabor this last point, as you don’t come here for politics, but what’s presently happening in Minnesota is not very American either. I fear for our country. I have for some time, watching the last 10 years or so play out. But I fear things are getting worse. I think about what my dad would say about all this, which in turn makes me wonder what I’ll say to my daughter about all this (when, you know, she can understand anything I say, which, granted, will be a while). Be good to each other.