Nick Marsh, the most decorated receiver the Hoosiers have ever pulled out of the transfer portal, showed up to the first spring practice in March wearing gold cleats. Third-year head coach Curt Cignetti, 10 weeks removed from a 16-0 national championship, saw them before the first snap of the spring. "I didn't love those gold shoes he came out in today," Cignetti told reporters that afternoon, March 27.
"He learned what getting your ass ripped is all about. I don't know if that happened to him very often at Michigan State." It wasn't necessarily the dry, no-nonsense head coach who had to take Marsh aside and show him the Hoosiers' ropes. "If you see something that someone might think they might be a little above the program or something like that, you need to be brought back down to the standard," said left tackle Carter Smith, a consensus All-American last season.
"Everybody is held to the same expectations. Nobody's above the program. It's not just up to Coach Cignetti, but it's also up to the leaders to be able to call that out." Basking in glory is not how Indiana won the national title and rose from the losingest program in college football history to the first 16-0 national champion, an out-of-nowhere accomplishment no Hollywood script could properly replicate.
The question this August is whether that program still exists after the bulk of the roster that built it exited stage left, leaving the spotlight for Cignetti's rebuilding project, using parts that have never been in the building. Indiana lost eight players to the NFL Draft, a program record, and, most notably, the Heisman Trophy winner and the No. 1 overall pick, Fernando Mendoza, who threw for 3,535 yards and an FBS-best 41 touchdowns. It lost 134 catches, 1,767 yards and 28 touchdowns in Elijah Sarratt and Omar Cooper Jr.
It lost its center, its tailback, its All-America cornerback and the heartbeat of a defense that finished second nationally in scoring at 11.7 points per game. Still, the Hoosiers return 10 starters -- a notable number, but not one that matches the benchmark set by the last eight national champions, each of whom returned at least 11 starters. Cignetti's answer to the dramatic production loss was the same one he utilized when he took the job before the 2024 season: buy production.
Indiana signed 17 transfers in a class rated fifth nationally. He replaced big production numbers with comparable production from elsewhere, the simplest approach in a sport that has turned to Moneyball more than development since the advent of the transfer portal and NIL payments. "First thing, when a name comes up, I Google it, right?" Cignetti said.
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