College Football's Most Important Players in 2026: No. 14 OT Carter Smith, Indiana

Bob Bostad was the one coach Curt Cignetti kept from the old staff, and that single retention talked Carter Smith out of the portal twice

Indiana Hoosiers' Carter Smith is the top offensive tackle in my list of the most important players in college football. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Carter Smith has started at left tackle for Indiana every year since he was a redshirt freshman, and he nearly left Bloomington before any of it happened.

The 6-foot-5, 313-lb. lineman entered the transfer portal in December 2023 after Tom Allen's firing, visited Virginia Tech, Florida State and Ole Miss, and came back only when Cignetti retained offensive line coach Bob Bostad as the lone holdover from the previous regime.

Two years and a national championship later, Smith is back in Bloomington again, this time by choice, after passing on a Day 2 pick in the 2026 NFL Draft.

Pro Football Focus and my own list rank him as the No. 1 returning offensive tackle in the country.

That combination of continuity and production makes Smith the offensive lineman college football cannot replace in 2026, and it's why he checks in at No. 14 on this list of the sport's most important players.

<< Previous: No. 15: Clev Lubin, EDGE, Louisville Cardinals

No. 14: Carter Smith, OT, Indiana Hoosiers

Smith started all 16 games at left tackle during Indiana's 16-0 national championship run and allowed nine total pressures across more than a thousand snaps, a number that improved every year of his career, from 19 pressures in 2023 to 12 in 2024 to nine in 2025.

He did not surrender a sack in the regular season and made it to the second half of the College Football Playoff National Championship Game before Miami's Rueben Bain Jr. finally got through him twice in the third quarter, the only multi-sack game of his college career.

Indiana Hoosiers offensive lineman Carter Smith projects to be one of the best in the game this season. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

The body of work earned him first-team All-Big Ten honors, the Big Ten's inaugural Rimington-Pace Offensive Lineman of the Year award and consensus All-American recognition.

He became the first Indiana offensive lineman to earn a first-team all-conference selection since guard Don Schrader in 1987, and the first tackle to do it since Charley Peal in 1977. None of this happens if Cignetti doesn't keep Bostad.

"I trust Bostad 100 percent," Smith said at the time of his decision to return.

Carter Smith is Indiana's best offensive player

Smith had already earned his degree in sport marketing and management from Indiana by the time the Hoosiers beat Miami for the title on Jan. 19. He was a consensus top-100 prospect for the 2026 draft, with some evaluators slotting him inside the top 50, and he had nothing left to prove at the position. He came back anyway.

"Sorry to keep you waiting, Hoosiers..." Smith began in the social media post announcing his return, a decision he had already signaled on the field moments after the final whistle in Miami Gardens.

Indiana's line returns four projected starters who did not allow a regular-season sack in 2025, Smith among them, and adds Wisconsin transfer guard Joe Brunner, who has never allowed a sack across 747 career pass-blocking snaps. Center Pat Coogan and right tackle Kahlil Benson are gone, but the left side of the line returns fully intact around Smith.

Carter Smith pic.twitter.com/QxJD2Ot9Jt

— Owen Denny (@OwenDennyNFL) July 10, 2026

Indiana replaced Heisman winner Fernando Mendoza with TCU transfer Josh Hoover this offseason, which means Smith's first job in 2026 is the same one he had in 2025: keeping a new starting quarterback upright while he learns the offense.

Draft analysts already project him as the best pass-blocking tackle in his class on tape, crediting quick, repeatable sets and hands that rarely make the same mistake twice.

Indiana opens the season at home against North Texas on Saturday, Sept. 5, at noon ET in Bloomington.