Big-Picture Questions About Indiana? Yes, Some Still Exist Heading Into 2026

It sounds silly in just about every way.

Entering Year 3, Curt Cignetti is 27-2 with a Big Ten Championship and a College Football Playoff National Championship, just as we all predicted.

It's silly to think about IU being in position to claim an unofficial "team of the decade" title, and perhaps it's even sillier to think that there are some big-picture questions that can be answered.

Don't get it twisted. Nobody is saying that Cignetti has anything to prove.

He's a 7-5 season from having more wins than any IU coach in the last 30 years. He's also 14 wins away from matching Lee Corso's win total from his 10 years at IU, but we'll save that side-by-side for another time.

For now, let's dig into those dwindling, but remaining big-picture questions for Cignetti:

What does the post-James Madison transfer era look like?

With all due respect to Tyrique Tucker, but 2026 is the first season of the Cignetti era in which there won't be a healthy crop of former James Madison transfers. Among the original 13 players who followed Cignetti and Co., Tucker is now the only remaining transfer left at IU.

It'd be a wild generalization to say that Cignetti only had Year 1-2 success because of the players who came with him from James Madison.

Guys like Fernando Mendoza, Omar Cooper Jr. and Pat Coogan were monumental pieces of the made-for-Hollywood 2025 season. It would also be a wild oversight to say that the baker's dozen crew from JMU was a small piece to the puzzle.

They established the foundation. Now, though, it's a new core. What does it look like without a bunch of guys who'll be in Year 3-4 with Cignetti?

It's well documented that IU is recruiting the transfer portal in a different way than it did back in 2024, and not just because Mark Cuban is all in. How IU handles having pockets that are now deeper and less familiar remains to be seen.

Cignetti's decision to call out Nick Marsh's golden spikes after his high-priced move to IU from Michigan State felt like a "reestablish the culture" sort of move.

Indiana WR Nick Marsh wore gold cleats to IU's first spring camp session. Curt Cignetti was not pleased to see that.

"He learned what getting your ass ripped is all about. I don't know if that happened to him very often at Michigan State." #iufb pic.twitter.com/UHRMM0i2bf
— Jared Kelly (@Jared_Kelly7) March 26, 2026

What's inevitable is that at some point, IU will have high-priced transfers who don't pan out. That's a new issue to worry about, and one that any top-tier program in America has dealt with, no matter how good at talent evaluation the staff is.

The question is how often that'll happen, and when it does, will IU have the personnel to overcome it?

For all we know, Josh Hoover will be in that camp by season's end. The track record of Kurtis Rourke and Fernando Mendoza suggest that's unlikely, but there's perhaps a bigger question worth asking as it relates to the TCU transfer.

How will Indiana handle real adversity at quarterback?

I should specify what I mean by that because we can't forget that Rourke literally played on a torn ACL in Year 1. That's real adversity, and the toughness he showed forever deserves praise.

But because Rourke was so durable, he only missed one start. Tayven Jackson led IU to a win against Washington in the lone game in which Cignetti's QB1 was unavailable, though it was a relatively ho-hum showing against a mediocre team who didn't win a single road game in Year 1 under Jedd Fisch.

Take that for what it is.

So far, QB1 started 28 of 29 games under Cignetti. Both starting signal-callers showed they could take a hit during their respective seasons in Bloomington. Clearly, Cignetti values durability among the veteran quarterbacks that he targets.

Hoover didn't miss a start at TCU after taking over for an injured Chandler Morris back in 2023. Does that guarantee a clean bill of health in 2026? Of course not. At 200 pounds, he's the smallest among the trio of QB1s that Cignetti signed out of the portal. Maybe that'll come into play, or maybe it won't.

We don't know yet what it would look like if IU had a multi-game absence at quarterback. As great as Alberto Mendoza (now at Georgia Tech) was in relief of his older brother, it's different to have to build an entire game plan around a new starting quarterback.

If either Grant Wilson or Tyler Cherry are called upon to win multiple games, can IU roll with it like Ole Miss did in 2025 or like Ohio State did in 2014? Perhaps those are both unrealistic bars to meet.

But sooner or later, that could define a season for IU.

What does it look like when Cignetti inevitably has to replace his coordinators?

It's the cost of success. Go ask Cignetti's former boss, Nick Saban, about that. If you're an elite assistant in this sport, it's only a matter of time before a too-good-to-pass-up head coaching opportunity comes along.

Even the most loyal assistants who have been with a head coach at four different places — that describes both defensive coordinator Bryant Haines and offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan — could eventually leave the nest.

Haines is the first Broyles Award-winning assistant to return to from a national championship team since Brent Venables stayed at Clemson after 2018. Dabo Swinney eventually lost Venables to Oklahoma after 2021, and replacing him has been no small task.

Haines could have a host of Power Conference programs who pursue him after 2026.

The same could be said for Shanahan, who is entering Year 6 as Cignetti's primary offensive play-caller. Shanahan's offenses, while perhaps not viewed as schematically earth-shattering, have still proven to be successful with a variety of skill-players.

Cignetti could certainly bank on continuity by keeping those potential coordinator successors internal, but that doesn't guarantee anything. One can argue that this is the most pressing remaining question for him to answer.

Fortunately for him, he won't have to answer that until at least 2027.

What are the unintended consequences of the most drastic turnaround we've ever seen in college sports?

We already talked about losing coordinators to head coaching jobs and whiffing on a high-priced transfer. Those are questions that are somewhat intended.

But with this unprecedented turnaround, there are non-telegraphed issues that could await on this path, wherein IU is now a major player in the sport.

For example, what does it look like if it's a sleepy crowd for a late-October game at Memorial Stadium? Does Cignetti follow the Lane Kiffin plan and call out the fanbase? If so, how is that received?

As much as IU would love to be "an everything school," let's remember that there's a reason why having top-level football and basketball interest at the same time is more of a rarity than an expectation. Finances play a part in that, though IU has certainly not been lacking financial urgency on the football side.

Still, though. Mark Stoops and John Calipari butted heads over the "basketball school" mantra late in their respective tenures at Kentucky.

And while Cignetti is in a position in he can currently do no wrong, how does he and IU handle being the team that everyone now wants to see humbled? It's not just about getting everyone's best shot. It's about being national news any time there's a polarizing quote or an unexpected letdown that comes out of Bloomington.

The amazing thing about 2025 was that IU won over even the casual fan. It wasn't uncommon for fans of Purdue or Illinois to voice their support of the Hoosiers. Call them "America's Team" if you will, but it's easier to exist in that space than the one that IU is entering.

It's a good problem to have. How IU handles that problem will define the ever-growing Cignetti legacy.

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