Mapping Out Indiana's Worst-Case Scenario for 2026

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Nothing about Indiana in the mid-2020s feels real, so remember that context with the question that we're tackling today.

Once upon a time, you could see an extremely likely path to 3-9 in Bloomington. We wouldn't debate IU's floor because, for lack of a better way to say it, debating 3-9 vs. 4-8 isn't the type of discussion that a fanbase locks into in June.

Needless to say, this discussion has taken on new life. IU's floor is higher than ever. Where is it? You came to the right place.

What If Indiana Isn't Quite as Good as Everyone Expects?

When you go 16-0 with a 27-2 two-year run, any sort of pre-November loss will be filed in the "championship hangover" category. Perhaps there's some truth to it, or perhaps there's not.

Worst-case scenario involves that cliché phrase coming out a fair amount. It means closer-than-usual victories in lopsided matchups, and not just by allowing a season-opening touchdown, like we saw against Old Dominion in 2025.

Here's a comforting thought — if we exclude the COVID season, every national champion in the 21st century has won at least eight games the following season. In fact, the last time that a defending national champ failed to win eight games (excluding 2020) was 1971 Ohio State.

(The Buckeyes were also one of three national champs in 1970, and the two other acknowledged national champs from that season both won eight-plus games.)

So while one shouldn't dismiss the mess of 2020 LSU — a team that lost both coordinators for a coach who had a championship hangover like no other and tied a modern NFL Draft record with 14 selections — it's the outlier in every way.

We have more than half a century of defending national champs who have told us that eight wins is the floor. You could argue that IU's rise was different than any of those programs, none of which were two years removed from being the losing-est (spelling?) program in the sport.

But yeah, we're not having the 7-5 discussions here.

Even projecting a 5-1 start feels too pessimistic

Why? Remember this. IU starts off with a trio of non-Power Conference home games and then Northwestern comes to Bloomington. No disrespect to North Texas, but all of those new pieces should eliminate the notion that it's the 12-win squad that we saw last year.

It's worth noting that Chip Kelly is one of two offensive coordinators who dialed up a winning game-plan vs. the Bryant Haines IU defense — that happened in the 2024 Ohio State loss — Northwestern feels like a lock to be unranked.

Cignetti hasn't lost to an unranked foe at Indiana, and while at Michigan State, Northwestern's projected QB1 Aidan Chiles was on the wrong end of a pair of losses by a combined score of 85-23. Make of it what you will. I make of it that IU will be at least a three-score favorite.

That brings us to those road trips to Rutgers and Nebraska.

Speaking of being unranked, you know who has yet to beat a ranked team in the 2020s? Rutgers and Nebraska.

They have the two worst records vs. ranked foes in the Playoff era of any Power Conference team. That's right. It's a combined 2-71, both of which were wins during the Barack Obama administration.

Power 4 School Records vs. Ranked Opponents In CFP Era pic.twitter.com/ssh5uM9KX3
— The Next Round (@NextRoundLive) May 4, 2026

What's more likely than losing to Rutgers or Nebraska is that IU gets away with too many mistakes in a 6-0 start.

Remember the discipline that was a calling card of the 2025 squad? Perhaps that's not such a constant and IU won't have the fewest penalty yards per game of any non-service academy like it had in 2025.

Remember the nation's best +1.38 turnover margin/game last year? That could regress in a way that isn't tested until the latter half of the schedule.

The Indiana worst-case scenario includes an overconfident team getting exposed down the stretch

IU should be rocking a 22-game winning streak as a potential top-five team going into that all-important Ohio State game.

You would inevitably hear Cignetti dogging his team publicly and pointing out potential flaws, but as we've seen, it's often difficult for that message to sink into a team that keeps racking up wins.

But in a worst-case scenario for IU, that's when things turn.

Remember Josh Hoover's turnover issues? Ohio State reminds the college football world of that concern.

Instead of that being perhaps a coronation in what's potentially the biggest home game in IU history, the Hoosiers get a wake-up call via the revenge Buckeyes who have already been battle-tested.

That shows up in the form of a precise, composed Julian Sayin, who thrives behind an improved Ohio State offensive line.

The problem with that matchup is that immediately following it is a trip to Ann Arbor against what's expected to be a more physical Michigan team under Kyle Whittingham.

It's not that IU gets blown out by the Wolverines. But a week removed from a physical battle against the Buckeyes, IU can't quite get up off the mat.

That's quickly all she wrote on the Big Ten Championship defense for IU.

I know what you're thinking ... Playoff hopes are still alive in that scenario

That's true. But that's not the worst-case scenario. Not for a team and a coach who has never started AND finished as a top-10 team.

Worst-case scenario after a 6-2 start involves the thing on IU's schedule that nobody is talking about — the trip to Washington.

In the last four seasons, road teams are 2-25 at Husky Stadium. The lone wins came last year by Playoff-bound Ohio State and Oregon. Could IU fall in that camp? Absolutely. Should a win in Seattle be assumed? Absolutely not.

If IU has two losses heading into a pressure-packed penultimate regular season game, the response will dictate everything. It'll be fair to poke holes in IU's résumé and say that another loss would doom a potential third consecutive trip to the College Football Playoff.

Shoot, even 10-2 might not be guaranteed a spot. In the first two years of the 12-team Playoff, eight teams won 10 regular season games and failed to make the field. That's why the lack of a premier non-conference game could prove costly.

Any worst-case scenario involves a 1-2 punch of that Ohio State-Michigan back-to-back. Would that be a knockout? It depends. The eye test would be important for IU.

Does Hoover struggle with a new-look group of pass-catchers that sees Charlie Becker battle injuries and fail to pick up where he left off in 2025?

Will Turbo Richard operate the way that Cignetti and Mike Shanahan demand of their backs?

And will this defense, which only has one remaining James Madison guy, still be phenomenal against the run and forcing field goals in the red zone?

IU is fighting complacency in ways that it never has. Answering those questions will tell us everything about the floor.

That's why IU's worst-case scenario is 9-3

Again, that's two losses to Ohio State and Michigan, with a loss at Washington. It's a 6-0 start that doesn't allow IU to improve and perhaps excuses sloppy play in ways that drive Cignetti to levels of frustration that he hasn't seen during his brief, but historically successful time in Bloomington.

IU is -115 to hit the "over" on 10.5 regular-season wins. So yeah, 9-3 and missing the College Football Playoff would be a considerable disappointment.

It would still be a 36-5 start to the Cignetti era, which would be sillier than any projection that one could've imagined the day at Assembly Hall when he called out seemingly everyone in the Big Ten.

If that's the conversation we're having, life could be worse.

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