Can Kansas Replicate Indiana Football’s Championship Success?

On Monday night, the college football world witnessed one of the most remarkable accomplishments in the history of the sport as Indiana beat Miami 27-21 to win their program’s first national championship in school history.

The win capped off an undefeated, 16-0 season for the Hoosiers as they etched themselves into the history books as one of the best college football teams of all time.

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The season was especially impressive considering that Indiana – like Kansas – is traditionally known as a basketball school with a rich history of success. The Hoosiers won five NCAA titles between 1940 and 1987, which still remains the fourth most in college basketball.

And like Kansas, Indiana had struggled in football for the better part of the last several decades. In fact, entering the 2025 season, the Hoosiers had the most losses in NCAA Division I (FBS) history with 715 (KU has 694.)

And yet, Indiana was able to have the success they did this season and win a national championship. Which begs the question: Can Kansas football do it too?

The secret to Indiana’s success this year wasn’t groundbreaking. They won because they had good coaching, built an experienced and competitive roster through the transfer portal, played disciplined football by minimizing penalties and leading the country in turnover margin (+21), and had strong financial support from alumni such as Mark Cuban.

All of those things are available to Kansas.

The personnel

Kansas can be as much of a destination for college football recruits and transfers as Indiana – if not more so because of the new stadium and state-of-the-art facilities that KU now has. Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) and the transfer portal also offers KU the chance to shape their roster as Indiana did if the staff can properly identify and retain the right talent.

In fact, Indiana had zero five-star recruits on their team this year and only seven players rated as four-star prospects. The rest were three-star or unranked recruits coming out of high school.

That type of roster is almost identical to how KU typically structures theirs.

The key for Kansas will be finding the right guy at quarterback as Indiana did with Fernando Mendoza or developing one of their own into one of the country’s best. That’s obviously not an easy task, but if they can one day find that quarterback, then the surrounding talent should be there to make KU competitive on the national stage.

The coaching

Is Lance Leipold as talented of a coach as Indiana’s Curt Cignetti? Is he capable of leading the Jayhawks to the College Football Playoff? That remains to be seen.

But Leipold has six national titles under his belt from his time at Wisconsin-Whitewater and he’s brought improvement to every program he’s been to since then. He’s also widely regarded as a top 25 coach in college football.

Regardless of who the coach is, it shouldn’t be difficult to replicate what Cignetti did with Indiana in terms of preparation.

If you coach the importance of protecting the football, minimizing penalties, and playing aggressive – you’re going to give your team a shot at winning most games that you play.

The resources

Like Indiana, the Kansas Jayhawks have a wealthy alumni base at the top with a mega donor like Cuban in David Booth – who provided the Kansas football program an historic donation last year.

And under the leadership of Kansas Athletics Director Travis Goff and Chancellor Doug Girod, the athletics department and university have proven they are completely dedicated to making the football program successful.

In fact, there has been perhaps no other school in the country that has dedicated as much time, effort, money, and resources to their football program as Kansas has these past few years.

They’ve provided competitive salaries for head coach Lance Leipold and his staff. They’ve provided the necessary practice, locker room and stadium facilities. They’ve provided everything a college football program could want or need to be successful at the highest level.

If all the pieces can align, Kansas absolutely has a chance to make a miraculous run to the national championship someday as the Hoosiers did this season.