Andy & Ari On3 - What Indiana’s CFP National Championship win MEANS for the rest of College Football

Episode Date: January 20, 2026

Last night, Indiana pulled off the improbable and won the 2025 CFP National Championship in Curt Cignetti's second season as the head coach in Bloomington. Watch here as Andy & Ari discuss this significance of this accomplishment for the rest of the sport and if it can be repeated in the future. Can what Curt Cignetti did be replicated somewhere else? What other schools could make a splash in the college football landscape? Watch here as Andy & Ari recap an incredible title run for the Hoosiers. (0:00) On Today's Episode(0:30) Presenting Sponsor(2:14) Intro: Indiana's CFP Win - Do stars still matter?(5:12) The Message Indiana sent to the rest of College Football(13:48) The Catapult of Indiana Athletics(17:55) Curt Cignetti's Path(25:45) Is Curt Cignetti 1 of 1?(32:36) Who's Next in CFB?(39:40) Off-Season Coverage(40:18) Indiana's Cigar Celebration(42:30) Conclusion: Congratulations to Indiana! This show is presented by Modelo! Some things in life are just made for each other. Peanut Butter and jelly. Macaroni and cheese. Modelo and college football. If you’re watching this, it means you live and breathe football. All season long. You know what that makes you? A Full-Time Fan. Which means you deserve a Modelo. Because football wouldn’t be the same without you. Modelo is the official beer sponsor of The College Football Playoff. Drink responsibly. Beer imported by Crown Imports, Chicago, IL Our show is also presented by BetMGM! If you haven’t signed up for BetMGM yet, use bonus code CFB and you will get up to a $1500 First Bet Offer on your first wager with BetMGM! Here’s how it works: 1. Download the BetMGM app and sign-up using bonus code CFB.2. Deposit at least $10 and place your first wager on any game.3. You will receive up to $1500 in bonus bets if your bet loses! Just make sureyou use bonus code CFB when you sign up! Make this college football season one for the history books. Make it legendary. See BetMGM.com for Terms. 21+ only. US promotional offers not available in New York, Nevada, Ontario, or Puerto Rico. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER (Available in the US). Call 877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY). Call 1-800-NEXT-STEP (AZ), 1-800-327-5050 (MA), 1-800-BETS-OFF (IA), 1-800-981-0023 (PR). First Bet Offer for new customers only. Subject to eligibility requirements. Rewards are non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire in 7 days. In partnership with Kansas Crossing Casino and Hotel. Join On3 today and get one full year of access to The Athletic included! https://www.on3.com/subscribe/C Watch our show on YouTube! https://youtu.be/pSOG9_n-MIk Hosts: Andy Staples, Ari WassermanProducer: River Bailey Interested in partnering with the show? Email [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On today's episode of Andy Nareon 3, presented by BetMGM. What does Indiana winning the national title mean for the rest of the sport? What does what Kurt Signetti did mean for the rest of the sport? We analyze what Kurt Signetti said after the national championship game, and we project it to everybody else and what it will mean for them. Today on Andy Naurion 3, presented by Bet MGM. We are presented by Bed-MGM. We use Bed-M-GM-G-Lines and totals.

And you can join us by joining Bed-M-GM-E. If you have not signed up for Bed-M-GM-Y yet, use the bonus code CFB as in college football, CFB, and you'll get up to a $1,500 first-bet offer on your first wager with Bed-MGM. Here's how that works. Download the Bed-MGM app and sign on using the bonus code, CFB. Deposit at least $10 to place your first wager on

any game. You receive up to $1,500 in bonus bets if your bet loses. Just make sure you use the bonus code CFB when you're signing up. So download the app, deposit at least $10, place your first wager, up to $1,500 if your first bet loses. Use the bonus code CFB when you sign up. Make this college football season one for the history books. Make it legendary with BetMGM. See Betmgmgm.com for terms 21 plus only U.S. promotional offers are not available. in New York, Nevada, Ontario, or Puerto Rico. Gambling problem. Call 1-800 gambler in the U.S.

Call 8778 Hope N.Y or text Hope N.Y. 467369 in New York. Call 1-800 next step in Arizona. Call 1-800-327-50-0-0-0 in Massachusetts. Call 1-800-bets off in Iowa or 1-800-9-8-1-0-2-3 in Puerto Rico. First bet offer for new customers only, subject to eligibility requirements. rewards are non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire in seven days in partnership with Kansas Crossing Casino and Hotel. Don't forget, if you haven't signed up for BetMGM yet, use the bonus code CFB and get your $1,500 first bet offer today.

Welcome to Andy and Ari on three presented by BetMGM. One more show in Miami, Ari. What a beautiful morning. I think I could be a Miami person. Look at that pool. It's nice. Oh, it's wonderful. I mean, the folks can't see the pool that we can see, but they can see.

They can see the water and all these beautiful glass structures. I see, I'm more of a Keys person, but I think you'd be more of a Miami person. Yeah, maybe a Boca person. I don't know, but I definitely are Boca person. This is my first time ever spending time in Brickle. Oh, yeah. And I like the city beach combo. It's kind of like you get both, you know?

Oh, yeah. But last night was, we both only slept for two and a half hours last night, so we're still fresh off of that. That was incredible. And there were so many storylines, so many messages. And I think that last night, Andy, the people in that locker room that we were in were celebrating the cigar smoke that we smell like still was because that was all out Indiana. But I think that when you zoom out to the rest of the college football world, that game was a hell of a lot more than just an individual championship game in terms of the messages that you can take away from it. So I tweeted this last night and I want to know if maybe I was being a little bit hyperbolic. And I know what we said last night on the show, you can't really be hyperbolic.

And I'm also the worst person to ask that to. I know. But I said, did Stars Matter die last night? And I figure I would bring that up to you, Mr. Stars Matter. Yeah. Stars Matter may have died last night, but I think it's been in hospice for a few years. Yeah. You know, like, it wasn't just like, if Indiana would have done this in 2015, like, I would be on a stretcher right now.

Because it wouldn't have been explainable. But as the years have gone on, through this new system with NIL and with the transfer portal. We have seen teams go on runs in different ways. But, you know, we always joke about these Disney movies and these Cinderella stories. Indiana isn't the first. We're four years removed from TCU doing this. Right.

But the clock eventually struck midnight. Yeah. You know, they played a super team that had amassed a bunch of talent and hoarded that talent, developed it and had more talent than most other teams on their bench, and they lost 65 to 7 in the national title game. Right. Now that other aspect of the story doesn't exist. There's no more villain.

There's no more super team that can stand above the test of time and beat your ass, even when you're having a magical year. So from the aspect of Indiana won the national championship, is Stars Matter Dead? I think I would say yes. But I think that there's a lot of factors around that that allowed that to happen as well. Well, and I also, it feeds into something you asked Kurt Signetti. because this is not just Indiana.

This affects everybody. Everybody can learn from this. Everybody can do something with this. It's a matter of whether you do it or not. Now, let's hear the question you asked Signetti and his answer. Hi, Coach Ari, Wasserman on three. In this sport for the past, you know, 25 years, it's been done a certain way to get to this point.

You recruit top five classes. You get a bunch of five stars. You develop them. You win national championships. What you guys did is something that really has never been done before you said at the beginning yourself that nobody believe that this could happen. What message did you send to the entire sport by doing what you did in terms of anybody can do this? And do you think that what you guys did changed the way that we should analyze this? I think we sent a message first of all to society that if you keep your nose of a grindstone and work hard and you got the right people.

point anything's possible. In our particular situation in the athletic world, college football's changed quite a bit, the balance of power also. But we had the right people on our staff in the weight room, in the locker room. And we had great senior leadership and togetherness, and we had a really good quarterback that played us best when the chips were down. And if you prepare the right way, This team did week in, week out, and put it on the field. We met the challenge every single week, and we're 16 and no. Are there eight first round draft choices on this team? Probably not.

No, there aren't. But this team, the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. The whole was greater than the sum of its parts. And no, there probably aren't eight first round draft picks on the team. There's one. He was sitting right next to Chrisanetti for Fernando Mendoza. but they showed you that you don't need a bunch of future first round picks as long as you have the right quarterback and the right people basically at every position. That sounds like something that a coach at a non-traditional program would have said before the season in 2015 that would have been met with an eye roll so drastic that I would have ruptured an eye.

And now it's true. Now, listen, I think that the moral of the story here, excuse me, for the first screech, is that anybody can do this, but I don't want there to be a mistake that it's easy. Well, I don't think anybody can do this. I think Kurt Signetti can do this. So that's the thing. Your ceiling at Purdue in Mississippi State in Arizona and

Missouri and everywhere else is this. There's no more offseason conversations of welcome back to Andy and Ari on 3. Today we're discussing which 17 teams could win the national title one day. It's all of them now. Yeah. But that doesn't mean that, all of them are going to be able to find an amazing coach, somebody who can deploy their NIL properly,

somebody who can identify that talent in the portal. And, you know, frankly speaking, he said they don't have eight first round draft picks on their team, but they have a hell of a lot of guys that are maybe, you know, six inches too short or somebody who's also having the first overall pick. Yeah. And they do or they did this year. Yeah.

That helps a ton. But guys might be a half a second to, too slow in the 40. Yeah. or undersized or, you know, not rated certain ways because of other limitations. That doesn't mean they're not very good college players. And I think there's a distinction there too. It's like, well, you know, Alabama won with their guys.

And I mean, Joe Burrow and LSU and J.M.R. Chase and Justin Jefferson, like, that was the old way to win. Yeah. But now if you have Charlie Becker on your team. Although Charlie Becker may be like, remember, Justin Jefferson was highly under-recruited. Yeah, he might end up being a really good NFL player. But I'm saying DeAngelo Pons is a half of a foot or a foot shorter than you're supposed to be. A great example of this. So DeAngelo Pons is an example that I think everybody in college football can look at.

There's no easier test of is this person good than did this person lock down Jeremiah Smith every day at practice? Like imagine I told you, Ari, you can have a corner who played Jeremiah Smith. every day for two years and fared really well against him all of those days. You can have that corner. Well, I think at a stark advantage physically. Yeah. Well, the thing is, that's what I'm getting at. If I told you that, if I just told you, Ari, you're a college football coach.

I have this corner here who in high school for the last two years, every day at practice has strapped up Jeremiah Smith. Scholarship. Easy, right? Yeah. Nobody. He's five nine, so nobody offered him. And there are a lot of stories like that. You know, Andy, you've been around the block.

You know this. But in 2014 and 15 and 16 and 17, they released all Big Ten lists and they released all SEC list. Yeah. There was always a guy from Mississippi State or Purdue or Indiana on those lists. It's not like these teams never had good players. Right. Now those players can be the center of what attracts something bigger. And I think that the point here is that this was remarkable.

This might have been. like Kurt Signetti himself said, one of the best stories in the history of American sports. And I don't doubt that they'll make a movie about this one day. Yeah. At the same time, the fact that you could say that Indiana did it by itself on its face, even if it's still remarkable,

doesn't mean that it's impossible. I think there's a huge distinction between impossible and remarkable. And I think that anybody can be remarkable if they get the right person. So, like, that's a huge difference because it used to be not long ago. very, very four short years ago where it was legitimately impossible. And I don't even know if Kurt Signetti could have done this in 2020. Like, can you imagine if this team played that Alabama team? Like, it just, it's different.

We're only three seasons removed from the second Georgia national title. And that, that team was so stacked, especially on defense with with incredible players. That was the TCU game. That was the team to be TCU. Now, the one, I think the one the year before it was probably the more talented group. but we still, there's nothing in college football right now that resembles that 2022, Georgia, 21 Georgia, 20, 20, Bama, 18 LSU. Yeah.

I mean, those were the epitome of the star. 18 Clemson. And Clemson was a little bit of the outlier, but then they had the number one pick in the draft. They had a bunch of first round defensive linemen. Yeah, they had everything. You could go back and do it year by year. all the way to 2014 Ohio State, which also had a million.

I mean, the first playoff winner. We can go to the BCS because 2013, four state is loaded too. So, you know, it's just, it, like that's the thing. Like, I don't, I feel like at times, if you say, well, the sport changed, good for Indiana, you're undermining how remarkable it is.

Yeah. And like, we're not doing that. Like, I think that we both can say with a full heart that what they did and who they assembled, like the Pat Coogan's of the world, guys who were at a superpower team. Yeah. who weren't good enough to start despite starting and then turn out to.

Did you see that guy's body after the game? Did you see him? He was covered in blood. It was. There was blood all over his towels. Yeah, I talked to him after the game, and he's wearing a white undershirt that is just soaked in blood and a towel that's soaked in blood. And he's just smiling. I asked him how it felt.

And he's puffing on a cigar. He just poised in the cigar and smiles. Yeah. You know, Andy, and I don't know if you've been getting a lot of this on Twitter. I've seen a lot of this, which is, congratulations. You have Mark Cuban. You did a, it's like anybody who is paying attention. Yeah.

To this knows that Indiana did compensate its players. You can't be serious about college football without compensating your players at a high level and taking care of people. Everybody does it and they'll continue to do it. But if you think that this was some sort of NIL like outbid everybody, bully ball financial scheme that they did, you're not paying attention. Yeah. Well, I mean, lots of schools spent a lot more than Indiana spent and either didn't win the playoff or didn't even make the playoffs. Yeah. Like, of course, financial.

you know, support is all a part of this. And Kurt Signetti said of the news conference after the game, too, that, you know, the president of the university is bought into football. You know, they understand that in this day and age, that being a basketball school is good. And, you know, having that basketball brand is a powerful, you know, property for your program. But you need to be good at football and they're bought into that. Well, all right. If you listen to the underlying tones of that message, because their president has said in the recent past, basically,

and I think the AD has said this too. They want to be a valued member of the Big Ten. Translation. If there's a Super League, we'd like to be in it. And guess what? Being good at basketball, which Indiana actually has not been to their standard lately. Was the last time they made a deep NCAA tournament run? Was it like it's been over a decade?

Yeah, they made a national title game in this century. But it's been a while since they've been really good at basketball. But being good at basketball is not. not going to get you in a Super League if a Super League happens. You have to be good at football. Well, that's an interesting aside that I didn't even consider. Oh, this is happening at the perfect time for them. If the Super League started tomorrow is Indiana in?

Well, now they are. Is that what the stakes are for the next five years? I think for certain schools, yes. Why do you think Cody Campbell spending all that money in Texas Tech? Dude, that's wild. I didn't even think about that. Oh, that's what is going on here. Yeah.

like if Indiana, if Indiana would have been out two years ago, but now they're in, think about the, everybody should be paying $100 million. Yeah. I mean, here's an interesting thought. Because Virginia Tech is one of those schools. And we've talked about this. I always bring up Virginia Tech with the, when we talk about the Super League, because I'm like, how can you have major, what you're going to call major college football

without Virginia Tech? Like, look at that stadium. Look at those people. Look, look at how amazing that is. can you imagine that not being part of it? Well, if they continue down the road they were on, probably not. But what if James Franklin comes in and they're in the playoff next year? And they're in the playoff the year after that.

You're kind of blowing my mind right now. It's like if the stakes of roster assembly, I mean, that's a really good, like, article, maybe a few weeks. Look at the wheels turning. Well, I mean, think about what would happen if you wrote an article that said, The Super League starts tomorrow is your team end question mark. Oh, my God. You know who just felt? to tingle our editor Luke to Stampaign.

He's like, what? What just happened? And is getting in as simple as how recent have you had big success. But that is how it works. Because we've seen it with other realignment. Like, why did Utah get in the PAC 12 and somebody else didn't? Because Utah was winning every year in the Mountain West.

And the other thing that's so funny is, you know, two years ago, or three years ago when USC joined the Big Ten, and this seemed to be the direction that we were headed in, the country was resentful that Indiana just happened to be at the right place at the right time. The Maryland, the Rutgers, the Indiana, the Purdue. They're like, oh, well, they happen to be in those rocks. They happen to already be there.

Especially the old lying grandfathered in. Yeah. Indiana, Purdue, Vanderbilt, Mississippi State, who haven't done anything in a hundred years and are just going to be in the right place, the right time when this happens. And it's like, well, Indiana isn't in the right place, the right time anymore. They went out and took that shit. Yeah, Indiana is making sure there. And they were investing in football even before they fired Tom Allen.

I think that's probably why they fired Tom Allen is they were significantly investing in football. But pre-NIL, it was facilities and all that stuff. And they did want to win. We just didn't, I think, understand how badly they wanted to win. And then we didn't understand how good Kurt Signetti was. Yeah. No, I mean, this is, like, it is unbelievable. And like every single year that we do the coaching carousel now,

you know, for the last 15 years, it was like, are you going to find the next dabbo? Who's the dabbo? Who's going to be the guy that comes into a good program? Meanwhile, dabbo is clinging to, you know, if he has another bad year, things are going to get really weird. But who do you think, like, search firms and ADs and all the people who are in charge of identifying candidates

are like looking at and saying, if we get the right guy, we might get this. And it's like, now Kurt Signetti has become that person. I'm glad you asked that. And it feeds into a question. that our friend Matt Fortuna asked Kurt Signetti last night. So let's hear Matt's answer or Matt's question. Kurtzegi's answer is actually fairly long. He goes through pretty much his entire resume,

but it's a very interesting journey through the resume, and he explains why he did it the way he did it, and it does raise a lot of questions about what people should be looking for in a coach. You were a successful football coach for 40 plus years before you got your shot at the quote-unquote big time. Was it hard not to be bitter about not getting that opportunity? And does it make a moment like this all the more sweeter? Are there lessons that people can take away from this?

I really won a successful coach for 40-plus years. I got a great break 23 years old at Rice University, which back then was in the Southwest Conference. We played SMU before they got the death penalty. And I was making good money. and it was one of the top two conferences in the country. But Rice didn't win and Temple didn't win, and we didn't win at PIP under Johnny Majors,

and people want to hire people from winning programs. We won a little bit under Walt Harris, but, you know, we were 500. I learned a lot about quarterback play from him. He was a great quarterback coach. Went to NC State, we won. We had Phillip Rivers, and then when I spent seven years there. But when Coach Sabin hired me, You know, we were 7 and 6 our first year at Alabama.

We lost Louisiana Monroe, 11th game of the year at home. But the next year, we had six first-round draft choices in that recruiting class. We were 12-known regular season. Lost the SEC game. It was 1-1-2 to Tebow and Ir. But next year we played him again, beat him, went 14-0-1 national championship. I really thought after my one year with Nick, I had what I needed to go out. That tied it together for me because I was a son of a coach who's in the Hall of Fame head coach.

You know, I was hitting a big 5-0. I didn't want to be a career assistant. I was not a coordinator. I was not on track to get a head coaching job. And I didn't want to be a 60-year-old assistant. I'd seen what those lives look like as a kid. So I took a chance. It took an unprecedented chance in this business and ended up here.

When I took that job, the goal wasn't to end up here. But I did. And the reason I'm sitting here today, I mean, all those things prepared me for this, but the reason I'm sitting here today is because of guys like this, and there's a ton of them in that locker room, and a great coaching staff, and a lot of us have been together a long time, a great strength and conditioning staff, a commitment from the president in AD, and in the change in times of athletics, you know, some of my previous experiences really helped me be ready to manage, you know, NIL and Transitioning. for portal and those kind of things. So Nick Saban told him he was nuts when he said he was leaving Alabama where he was an assistant to go be the head coach at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, which is a D2 school. But you heard him.

He wasn't going to get one of those hot coordinator jobs. He was getting like he was almost 50 years old. Nick Saban was hiring younger guys as his coordinator. He heard as, you know, Kurtznyn is an offensive guy. So first Sabin, He was in his 30s at the time, and then hired Jim McElwain after that, who was in his maybe late 30s, early 40s at the time. So, Signetti was not in the line of succession there. Yeah.

If he ever wanted to be a head coach, he had to go figure out how to do it himself. Yeah. And I wonder what that conversation was like behind closed doors, because Sabin could have been here or nuts. And he's like, well, am I getting promoted here ever? Right, right. And then if I'm not, then what would you do if you wanted to be a head coach? I mean, like, sometimes, you know, people take risks and they do things, and I commend him for doing that. But at the same time, too, it was like, if you want to achieve something, you have to.

Yeah. And you know how it goes in these coaching carousel, you know, we talk about it behind the scenes all the time. Well, is this person going to be a head coach if he stays there or does he have to go there? You know, it's and people get sexy. And it happens. And it's a fleeting thing. But he never was sexy. That's what's interesting about this because the job he took, Indiana.

Yes, it's a power conference job. Yes, is the Big Ten. but it is not a job that any of the quote unquote sexy candidates wanted. Right. And for a while he was in D2 and while he was at James Madison. And I think this happened when Sean McVeigh went to the Super Bowl. Like sexy, handsome, young. It's like actually physically sexy handsome young men became the prime candidates in a lot of these places.

And if you've noticed, there's been a wave of younger people. when Ryan Day took over, he was very young. Kenny Dillingham has been young. Like hiring. Dan Lannning was pretty young. Even when you look at the Indiana hire when they made it. It's like, oh, that guy's old. I mean, the ageism is real in college football coaching.

Well, but we've already seen his effect, I think, on that because I don't think Kyle Whittingham gets the Michigan job, if not for Kurt Signetty. Because Kyle Whittingham is 66 years old. Michigan, this is, I mean, it's the University of Michigan. The old way of thinking would have been we have to. hire someone who's going to be here for 20 years. I mean, Sharon Moore was young when he got hired. It's to be the head coach at Michigan.

He's still young now. But that's not what they're looking for anymore. They're looking for somebody who could go win now. And I think Signetti maybe helped adjust everybody's thinking on that. And I'll tell you, I'll tell you who has to be sitting there going, I might be making some money here in the next few years. Willie Fritz at Houston has got to be like, I may be the number. one coach candidate in America if I have another good year at Houston. Yeah, and maybe he should be.

Because he wins everywhere. And like everything is, there's a pendulum. It swings back and forth of correction, new trend, something new happens. And, you know, I think that hiring coaches who have a longstanding history of winning at a high level, regardless of where it is or what their age is, should be considered for big jobs. You know, it's like you don't have to be young and attractive to look at the tape and say, so-and-so can play. You know, so like, you know, it is interesting,

and I don't think that this is that fully landed to people. But like, was Kurt Signetti a college football Hall of Famer a week ago? No, but he is now. He's a college football Hall of Famer now. Yes. Like, yes. And the way they'll couch it is, he won at every level.

He did it every. And then they culminated with this Indiana championship. But the fact of the matter is, he would not have gotten in. I think Lance Leipold will eventually get into the college football Hall of Fame, does anything else in the power conferences or not because of what he did at Wisconsin Whitewater in Division III. That said, what if Lance Leipold has a great year at Kansas this year?

Yeah. Because he already rescued them from the abyss. We've seen him work miracles before. There's two things to that, which is, I mean, I think you could make the case of Kansas was worse off than Indiana. Far worse. Yes. But now that Signetti has done it, I want to.

wonder if the, if being better. Yeah. Or surviving is not good enough is good enough. I don't know. Well, no, I mean, Lance, Lance got criticized last year. Yeah. Because of that, that, that record. So yeah, they, they get you pretty quick. Like it, yeah, it comes, the expectations come for you quickly once you give people a tasty success. So, but yeah, it's going to be interesting to watch. And like what we might be watching here, Andy. And I don't know, we'll know in five years. Yeah. What we might be watching here might just be one of the most significant coaching career arcs ever. Yeah, it might be he's a one of one. Yeah.

Like it's like, are we watching Michael Jordan in his prime right now? Yeah. Like, and if we are, are we foolish for saying that anybody can do this anywhere? This might just be something so remarkable that we can't even truly wrap our heads around. This might be the answer to the offseason question we used to always get of if Nick Saban coached this school, could they win a national tight? But I don't think we ever had Indiana on that list of if Nick Nick Statenay coach the school. But maybe they could have. But yes, maybe Kurt Signetti is that level of coach.

And only that level of coach could have done that. Because the thing that is so important here. And I said it on the video last night, but if they didn't watch the video, I want to say it again. If you asked, and I was around a lot of interviews on that field and in the locker room last night. And a lot of people, you know, why did you come here? How did you get, how did SIGs get you? here and all this. The answers were all the same. And it was, he was selling us on a mission and a viewpoint that we had to buy into, which is we're going to win. Nobody believes it. We're going to win.

And I think that the right person can make the, believe me, we're going to win compelling argument and get people to do it. And he obviously did. Think about the difference between we're going to win and we did win. What does that mean now? It's a much more powerful message. And what does that mean for every portal person that he has coming up, you know, in the following year. What does it mean in February when he walks into a high school and tries to sign a recruit? And what if instead of having DeAngelo Pons, who's an outstanding corner, but is five, nine? Yeah. What if the next one is six one?

Yeah. But like that's how like, is Indiana going to win another national championship under his leadership in the next five years? That's like it's like it's like it's possible. If you look at some of the pieces that are coming back, they're going to be awesome again next year. It's a good question. It's going to be hard because I do think part of what they did was this particular group had a very special chemistry.

And look, it's not easy to do in this day and age because the system makes everything so transient. But there still will be teams where a lot of players have played together for a while, where everybody gets the message, gets the mission, and you add maybe that just right last ingredient. like a Fernando Mendoza and you win. That's going to happen. That's probably the story of the national champion every year going forward.

It's just not going to be that there's 10 first round draft picks, you know, on the roster, scattered throughout the roster over three years. I don't know how to say this without sounding offensive and I'm not trying to be, but does Indiana have more good players pound for pound on their team than Miami? They might. They certainly did on the field last night. They might not too. Right.

Does Indiana have more good players on their team than Ohio State? Do they have more good players on their team than maybe even Alabama if you just went roster for roster? And maybe by saying good, we're going to Mobile this weekend. I'm talking about NFL talent. Yeah, I don't. We're beating teams, I think, that they're not as good as the sum of their parts. Right. And it's finding that coach you can make you better than the sum of your parts that that makes, that elevates you.

Yeah. It makes you a contender. And I'll say this, and I'll say it a million times, you've been covering this longer than me. There were some really good teams under Sabin that were clean and played hard and didn't commit a lot of penalties. Indiana is surgical. They are a machine. Yes. Like they don't.

Miami made catastrophic mistakes in that game. And I actually think that we will at this week maybe spend a little bit more time talking about them because I think that what they did yesterday was really remarkable too. Oh, Miami could have out of the game three times. in that game and they and they were in Indiana territory down six. They had a chance to win the game. They literally could have won that. Yeah, yeah. But maybe the best coached team that I've seen pound for pound play for play assignment

oriented, physicality, penalty. I thought the most, all these things. Telling thing last night was when Mario Cristobal sent the kicker out at the end of the first half on fourth and two from the 32. they had two timeouts. There wasn't a ton of time on the clock. They had two timeouts. You will not convince me that Mario Cristobal would not have gone for that against any other team.

But they had just gone for a fourth and inches and made it by like a millimeter. And every centimeter of ground they gained was so hard at that point. Yeah. Going forward on fourth and inches from your own was it 34, I think, or 33. Yeah. And barely getting that is like a mess. of like, yeah, you might get something, but you were going to have to work your ass off to get every inch in this game. So when they sent the kicker out, I was like, this, okay, Indiana is playing

so well and they're so sound that is fundamentally altering the way the opposing head coach thinks. Yeah. And, you know, listen, I think, too, that part of that was there were 35 seconds leftish, 38, I think. They had two timeouts. Yeah, I mean, no, they definitely could have gone and tried to score. Don't get me wrong. But at the other, the other side, too, is that, like, if you don't get it or you miss a field goal there, which they ended up doing. Yeah, because they were one of five. They were down. Going into,

they were one of five on field goals over 40 yards in the playoff. Yeah. And they, that's the other thing, too. They were really, and they have a unit on the bench. Let's not forget. Poor bird Auburn.

But if you go down into the locker room, 10, nothing, you have to fear you're going to be down 17, nothing. Yeah, that's when Indiana does what Indiana does. So, and then kudos to Miami for coming out and getting a stop. In the second half, when Indiana went three and out, and then they roughed. the passer or a face mask or something. Was it a face mask? And they got a first down. I was like,

oh, God. You just blew the entire game. And then they got another stop. They're still forcing a punt. And then they scored that touchdown. But, yeah, that thought process, too, is interesting of like, this is a team that is bully ball. Like, what is in Miami is built off of getting a yard. And they bullied the bullies for sure. And so can Indiana do that next year? We don't know. The team may look fundamentally different. You know, Josh Hoover comes in. Josh Hoover's coming in from TCU. He's probably more. accomplished coming from TCU than Fernando Mendoza was coming from Cal. Yeah.

I mean, it's possible that we'll be looking up in October and Hoover's just lighting it up like Fernando was. And it's like, you know, maybe there's something to that. I don't know. Even the best teams in the country have a hard time repeating.

I mean, that's Ohio. Well, okay. Let's have a little fun then. Okay. Since we're expanding Indiana out to the rest of the world. Who?

Who's next? who can we mentioned a few that we think can do this sort of theoretically but i mean we lose sight of this vanderbilt was awesome this year benderbilt was 10 and 2 right now what vanderbilt needs to prove is is that's not all diego pavia based so can clark lee and company and clark lee was here at this hotel the other night to get the eddie robinson coach of the year award so can vanderbilt do the same thing without Diego Pavia because if you go 10 and 2 again, there's a really good chance you're in the playoff. Whether they go to 16 or not,

there's a really good chance you're in the playoff if you're 10 and 2 again. So that's one that I'm really interested to see, can they do this? Texas Tech made the playoff. They got shut out by Oregon. The way they are spending, the way they are assembling their roster, they can be back.

Yeah. And I think that the answer to your question, like the easy, lazy thing to do would be like, well, who's been really good the last two years? It's not just that, though. But I want to ask you, and you, you. Oh, I got one. Yeah.

What about off the radar teams that are, that you've noticed have taken an interest in investing in the program or that could come out of nowhere? One that spent a lot of money to get rid of its old coach because things had gotten stale and then hired somebody now and they didn't hire the signet one. They went hot coordinator. They went young guy. But they, you could tell by the way they attack the transfer portal that they are very serious about this stuff. and that is Kentucky. Will Stein. Kentucky is a really interesting one.

And it's, you know, look, Kentucky and Indiana are so geographically close. They are, you know, philosophically, you know,

we think of them as basketball schools. Big Ten football. But it's also a fan base, even more so than Indiana's in the past, where they're dead serious about winning in football. And we have been telling you all fall, there are good coordinators, there are good coordinators.

I would buy Kentucky stock right now. Now, it might be a little bit more expensive than it would have been before they hired Will Stein. Yeah. But it's still cheap. Exactly. I'd buy that. Why can't you, if you can do this at Indiana, there is absolutely no reason that you can't also do it at Kentucky. And this is a team that will invest and has invested.

And as you just put it. Yeah. I mean, the aggressiveness was which they went after Sam Levitt in the portal. Yeah. That said, we want to be players in this. And they knew they were going to have to overpay for him. Like they offered more than, I think, the other schools he was looking at were offering. And they, but they knew they had to.

They didn't get him. They ended up getting Kenny Menci. But the fact that they were so, you know, so aggressive. And then they went and got some, you know, C.J. Baxter is, you're going to be their running back this year. But guess what? If Kentucky would have been in year two and made the playoff in year one, the way that Indiana did, they might have gotten 11. That's true. And like that's, he could have been there for Fernando Mendoza.

Yeah. Like, that's kind of how it goes. think people want to see some sort of proof of concept. It was Curtis Rourke the first. That's, you know, maybe that's what everybody forgets. It was getting Curtis Rourke from Ohio that helped kind of set them on their path in Indiana. Mensche can be that person. And, you know, Curtis Rourke is never going to play in the NFL, but he is an NFL quarterback.

Oh, he's on a roster now, I believe. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, it's not, that guy didn't stink. Yeah. So, you know, I think that, and I also wonder, too, Andy, how much year one becomes an emphasis too of being there's no more year zero everybody and we said this during the coaching carousel like if you if your guys not already winning by year two you blew the higher

nobody who wants to do what signetti did or even something anywhere close to that goes into it saying this is a rebuild i'm going to need time to get my guys in here they're just attacking it and i think if you've seen anything will stein said and we'll reach out to kentucky and get will on the show He's, if you haven't heard from him before, he's really dynamic. He's a lot of fun to talk to. They are not saying stuff like that. They are saying, we're here to win right now. Yeah.

And it's so, it's like I'm the most overreactionary person you'll ever meet. I get excited. And it's like, oh, look, it's a piece of candy. Like, I get excited. But like Vanderbilt didn't. They improved. Yeah. But it took a minute.

Yep. You know, I don't know if there's a cookie cutter. This is the way it has to go. this is how it's going to go. Everybody is going to either follow this path or not. Like I think there's multiple ways to get to where you're going. But like Vanderbilt getting people in the portal wasn't a pipe dream. No.

And now they are they are very much landing people in the portal with a, with a very distinct plan for how to use them. And then you can you can really like, this is the whole concept of the show, but like you really could start running away with this. It's like, well, Vanderbilt's in Nashville. Nashville is one of the coolest cities in America. They're a wonderful academic institution, cool uniforms that are getting built.

You can buy into any sales. Yeah, there's a lot of ways to sell it. At any place now where it's like Vanderbilt was like a joke. I even think about five years ago. So, you know, there are teams, and I think, you know, we have a long offseason of topics, Andy. I want to blow our whole wad here in the first day for the national championship. But, you know, trying to identify shows and really thinking holistically, if you put up a list of all the Power 5 teams, teams and we circled 10. I bet you we could come up with 10 that might are escaping us right now.

But yeah, I think that college football changed a lot dramatically over redundant. I do that a lot. Dramatically over the course of the past three years and it seemed slow but fast at the same time, I think what happened in Miami on Monday night might have been the single most, single most violent ship. in what people can expect from their place that we've had in my professional career. Yeah, and I think probably what happened will help us when the next one comes along, recognize it a little faster. Yeah.

Because I remember, you and I did not rank Indiana in our way too early this time last year. Legitimately embarrassing. We're stupid. Yeah. Stupid. I hope we'll be smarter now. Yeah. That was really dumb.

And I hope that you guys can respect that we acknowledge that. And if you're an Indiana fan who called us stupid at the time, you're right. Yeah, you're right. Shout out Jeff out there who on Twitter has been bribing the bandwagon the entire time. What do you think he did last night? tweeted at us. I saw it. But probably had a few Hoosier beers.

Yeah. Man. It's incredible. And I think that our off season is shaped differently. Yeah. I think our top is who we have. It's like, you know, we say have conversations of like, well, that's not a big enough fan base or that team. never going to do anything.

Should we have this person on the show or whatever? Yes, we should. Yes, we should. And maybe that will help us. You know, we get complaints and I think they're kind of like wrong about how we talk about Ohio State and Alabama and Georgia too much. We do talk about those teams a lot because they've got robust fan bases. But I think we do a good job of spreading it around.

I think we should make a bigger effort to spread it around even more now. Let's do it. We have, look, we have the biggest team site network in the world. Yeah. And on three people on here. Lots of very excited fan bases that watch what in the end. and said, maybe we can do this too. And this was a perfect episode because I literally just, like, verbatim was like quoting

the column I wrote at midnight at two in the morning last night. One funny scene from the, from the locker room, Charlie Becker was sitting in front of his locker. And I'm going to give you the lead in the end of my story right now because, you know, but you can read it on three. Yeah, you can read it on three, but I don't know how much crossover there is. He was sitting in his locker and people were asking him questions like, how did you do this? Why did you get all the same? And it was all television questions.

I was like, tell me, did you think a year ago that you could have done this? And a teammate of his, and I wish I would have seen who it was, jumped in the scrum and like through, gave him a cigar. And Charlie, who I don't think he's ever smoked a cigar in his life, inhaled it. I think a little bit too much and started hacking. It was hilarious. Because like, you know, cigars aren't, not every kid that age smoked cigars. It's not like a thing that people. Yes.

That's not a thing that younger people do. you know, vapes and stuff maybe, but not that. Anyway, he was hacking. And then when he stopped coughing, he goes, I guess it should have been a Cuban. And everybody laughed because of where we are and the fact that, you know, they're illegal and all that. I think that that locker room cigar for him was all about Indiana as it should have been. But my wrote in the story last night that every fan at Minnesota, at Duke, at Mississippi State, at Purdue, at Arizona,

whatever other college you want to put in there across the country should have lit a cigar last night in celebration of like, hey, this is possible for us now. And maybe get a Cuban, nothing wrong with a little, you know, light misdemeanor action, and then hold that one in a humidor.

I don't know how long those last, but when you guys finally break through, when your team breaks through, you can smoke the Cuban cigar when your team breaks. I bet our guy Jeff was smoking one. Yeah. I think this is awesome. And, you know, parody has been a lightning rod of a conversation for us for years.

And like, not only do we have it in terms of the individual results on Saturday, we have it and who the champion is now. And I'm assuming that Georgia will win another one at some point. Alabama. Notre Dame may come back in. But Notre Dame had won one since 1988. Sure, Ohio State will be in the next. These teams aren't dead.

It's just that now it could be anybody. And who knows who it's going to be in 2029. Like, think about that. Like, we might start doing our top 25s now and trying to, like, figure out, like, Notre Dame's going to be awesome next year. We're going to talk a lot about Texas this off season because Texas has a lot of good players again. But, like, in 2028, it could be anybody. And that is what makes it exciting.

We'll talk to you on Wednesday.