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May 24, 2026; Indianapolis, Indiana, USA; Indiana Hoosiers football head coach Curt Cignetti waves before the 110th Running of the Indianapolis 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Mandatory Credit: Marc Lebryk-Imagn Images | Marc Lebryk-Imagn Images
Indiana isn’t the first team to rise to prominence and reach the top of its sport, far from it. But the Hoosiers’ path to that championship and its epilogue differs from their predecessors. Landing commitments from 5-star recruits is usually part of the rise to said championship rather than a feature of its aftermath.
But here we are.
Indiana landing such a commitment from Monshun Sales is the latest in a series of pivotal achievements for a program that’s completely dismissed the norms of college football for two years now. Which is exactly what Curt Cignetti said he was going to do back in 2023.
Indiana, when Cignetti arrived, had lost more games than any other FBS program in the history of the sport. It’d been decades since the Hoosiers won a bowl game and never since they’d won ten or more games in a season. Indiana was just another Big Ten team on the schedule of whoever won the conference in a given year, never its championship favorite.
Then Curt Cignetti arrived, looking to win. Fast.
“There will be no self-imposed limitations on what we can accomplish,” he said in December 2023.
Two years, several Coach of the Year awards, two College Football Playoff bids, one Big Ten championship, one Heisman Trophy Winner, one Rose Bowl championship, one Peach Bowl championship and one national championship later and now one 5-star verbal commit later and Cignetti’s words have rung true.
Indiana, as previously mentioned, is historically not a place where you do any of that. It’s also historically not a program 5-star football recruiting prospects pledge to spend their college years with.
More than that, it’s not a program that’s seen much of the best talent in the state pass through its facilities.
The state’s highest-rated football prospects have chosen to leave its borders more often than not. The likes of Ohio State and Michigan have usually ended up with the state’s top talent. If a talented player stayed in the state, it was typically to go to Notre Dame. Not anymore. Not with Cignetti around.
You can’t win 10+ games at Indiana, except he can.
You can’t win the Big Ten at Indiana, except he can.
You can’t win national championships at Indiana, except he can.
You can’t land the state’s top talent at Indiana, except he can.
Cignetti started flipping the script two years ago. He’s nowhere near close to being done.
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