INDIANAPOLIS — When it was over, the upending of the sport complete, Curt Cignetti walked matter-of-factly to midfield, not acknowledging the chaos he had wrought. He shook hands with Ohio State coach Ryan Day, whose 16-game winning streak Cignetti had just ended. The greatest disruptor in college football history betrayed no emotion.
It was there on the inside, no question. You don’t walk the 64-year-old Cignetti’s career path without an acute appreciation of this gobsmacking moment. But for a man who built a program from the ashes on the expectation of winning everything, this was no time for running around like Jim Valvano in Albuquerque in 1983.
“I think we were a year late,” Cignetti chirped after this 13–10 upset of the top-ranked, reigning national champion Buckeyes. That was a nod to the first of several outlandish boasts he made shortly after being hired as a relative nobody on Nov. 30, 2023. Cignetti drove up to Indy from Bloomington, Ind., to appear on Big Ten Network before the title game that season, explaining, “I figured I had to make this trip up here, since we’ll be playing in this game next year.”
So, yeah. A year late. And also light years early.
The school that is the closest in the Big Ten to the annual site of the league title game—just 48 miles—seemed like the farthest away.
This is an impossible, last-shall-be-first story. Indiana is quite literally the losingest program in FBS history, with 717 defeats and 532 victories. The shocking thing is that when Cignetti took over, the Hoosiers had lost 715 times. He’s added only two defeats to the total, while winning 24 times.
Greatest coaching job ever? Find me a better one.
Indiana football wasn’t dead two years ago, but it was comatose. Cignetti took it upon himself to wake it up with all the bold statements, including his famous, “I win, Google Me,” directive.
Google and all other search engines will soon pass along these updated facts: Indiana is the No. 1 team in the country for the first time ever, the No. 1 team in the College Football Playoff rankings for the first time ever, the undisputed Big Ten champion for the first time in 80 years, and the only undefeated team in this turbulent 2025 season. The Hoosiers’ next game will be a CFP quarterfinal in the Rose Bowl, a game they have played in just once, in 1967. They should now be favored to win the national championship.
The Hoosiers have forced a skeptical nation to believe in them, one eye-opening victory at a time.
Going 11–2 last season was completely astounding, with Cignetti immediately building Indiana from 3–9 to the College Football Playoff with a bunch of unheralded James Madison transfers. But the Hoosiers beat no ranked opponents during the season and were outmanned against Notre Dame in the playoff first round, fueling a chorus of critics—mostly from the Southeastern Conference—who said they didn’t really belong in the bracket.
How did Cignetti and Indiana respond to suspicions that the season was a fortuitous fluke? By getting better. Much better.
This Indiana team is much improved on both lines, deeper at the skill positions, stacked with defensive playmakers and—here’s the biggest key—lethal at quarterback. Fernando Mendoza, who was the No. 134 QB prospect in the Class of 2022 according to 247 Sports, might have won the Heisman Trophy on Saturday night.
On the first play of the game, Mendoza rolled out to throw and was blasted by Ohio State defensive end Caden Curry. The hit skirted the edge of a dirty play—almost late and almost too high. Mendoza writhed in pain on the turf, a disaster immediately in the making.
It looked bad. He left the game for a play, replaced by his backup and little brother, Alberto. But then Mendoza came back, a testament to the toughness coiled within the apple-cheeked 22-year-old from Miami.
Ohio State kept knocking him around. Kept pressuring him in the pocket. Kept disguising coverages that occasionally confused him. The nation’s No. 1 defense was leaning on Mendoza and the Indiana offense.
But the Hoosiers’ D did the same thing to Ohio State and its own Heisman candidate quarterback, Julian Sayin. They sacked him, made him hold the ball and walled up stoutly in the red zone.
The game became the kind of old-school, defensive slog that Big Ten football was built on. Ohio State led 10–6 at halftime. One of the quarterbacks would have to make a few big plays, to dent a dominant defense, to win it.
The Buckeyes got the ball first after halftime and had to punt, pinning Indiana back at its own 12-yard line. On a third-and-2 from the 19, Mendoza dropped and fired a deep ball into the best secondary in the country, dropping it in to sophomore Charlie Becker for 51 yards.
Becker is a remarkable story in his own right, recruited out of Nashville by previous coach Tom Allen, but Cignetti kept him committed and signed him in December 2023. He barely played his first year, and was down the depth chart most of this season as well—he had just seven catches in the first nine games of the year.
But when star receiver Elijah Sarratt got injured, Becker seized the opportunity. He had seven catches for 118 yards against Penn State, including a couple big ones on the winning drive, then followed that up with 108 against Wisconsin the next week.
Three plays after Mendoza’s bomb to Becker, he fired a pass to Sarratt at the front pylon of the end zone—a staple of Indiana’s red zone offense. Sarratt made a contested catch, and suddenly undefeated and largely untested Ohio State faced its first second-half deficit of the season.
Twice thereafter, the Buckeyes drove inside the Indiana 10-yard line. Twice, they failed to score. Sayin was stopped short on a fourth-and-1 quarterback sneak inside the 5—replay review overturned a called first down—and then kicker Jayden Fielding shockingly missed a tying 26-yard field goal with 2:48 remaining.
At that point, Indiana simply needed to get a first down to seize the game. Facing a third-and-6 on its own 24, the Hoosiers again eschewed the short, safe throw and went for it. Again, Mendoza loaded up and looked for Becker. He fired a perfect strike for 33 yards that essentially ended the game.
Mendoza might have already had his Heisman moment leading the game-winning drive at Penn State, but the most spectacular play was made by wideout Omar Cooper Jr., whose toe-tap touchdown defined human dynamics. Heisman Moment 2.0 was Mendoza’s doing, showing his trademark deadly accuracy on that streak to Becker down the sideline.
“Heis-Mendoza!” Indiana’s players chanted afterward as the quarterback was giving the Most Outstanding Player award.
“Who would have ever believed the Indiana Hoosiers are Big Ten champions?!” Mendoza shouted as the fans roared.
What an interview by Fernando Mendoza 😆👏
— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) December 7, 2025
(via @CFBONFOX) pic.twitter.com/UbS8DUZtqo
For Ohio State, this was a humbling result and a bitter déjà vu. The Buckeyes were favored in this game and the favorite to win a second straight national title. Instead, they must regroup for the playoff after another stunning, 13–10 loss.
That was the score of the disaster against Michigan last year. Ohio State responded by storming through the playoff, four straight victories that changed the narrative on Day’s tenure.
Now they have to do it again. At least they know it can be done.
For Indiana, this was the apex moment of a previously pitiful program. But Curt Cignetti, who now is second only to Bob Knight in Indiana coach hero worship history, is keeping his eyes on an even bigger prize.
“I’ve got 3½ weeks to get this team humble and hungry for the playoffs,” he said. “[Being No. 1] only counts if you finish it.”
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Indiana Caps Unthinkable Rise From Losingest Program to Top CFP Seed.