Curt Cignetti and Indiana caught lightning in a bottle with a once-in-a-century run. And now a portion of every fan base will expect their team to do the same thing.

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The original was posted on /r/cfb by /u/SueYouInEngland on 2026-01-20 08:03:56+00:00.

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To those of you suddenly expecting a Natty—or at the very least a CFP run—from your team because of Indiana’s statistically anomalous season: just stop. You’re embarrassing yourself.

Before 2024, Indiana was the worst P4 program, with only 3 bowl wins and 717 losses. Indiana won the Natty this year with the 72nd most talented squad. Previously, the least talented squad to win the Natty was 2023 Michigan, which was the 14th most talented team in the country.

I understand, logically, that your team may have been better than Indiana, and then Indiana made a head coach hire, and now your team is worse than Indiana. So all you should have to do is to make a new head coaching hire to be better than Indiana again, right?

Wrong. Your head coaching hire won’t be better than Curt Cignetti. It just won’t. I don’t care how smart your AD is, or how many billionaire boosters you have, or how principled your institution is—your head coach will not be as good as Cignetti. Because Curt Cignetti is the best head coach there is, and he will be until he is no longer a head coach.

I don’t know what Cignetti had to do to put this miracle season together, or what diety he made a deal with, but it is not reproducible. There have been hundreds of teams throughout the last century sitting around 70th talent-wise (±20) with relatively new coaches, and NONE OF THEM have gotten anywhere close to a Natty besides this IU team.

The 2025 Indiana team is the exception that proves the rule. It is literally unique—no other team has ever won a Natty with a blue-chip ratio under .500, and certainly no team has ever won a Natty in a new coach’s second year when the prior six head coaches had only finished one season ranked combined.

And that is why Indiana’s success does not affect your team—their success has literally never been seen before in the history of college football, and it very likely never will be for a long time. Doesn’t mean a portion of your fan base isn’t going to convince themselves that they deserve it and are CFP-bound as soon as they fire their head coach, though.