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Last newsletter of the 2025 season. Thank you for riding with me during my first season since 2019 writing about this sport like this. See you Tuesday when I’m on my way back from Miami. Anything important going on there in the meantime?

David vs. David: Miami, CFB’s greatest Cinderella … for now

When has anything like Curt Cignetti’s Indiana turnaround happened before? In college football, at least? A question that’s become more and more popular over the last 12 months or so.

Bill Snyder’s Kansas State overhaul is the most frequent answer, one I’ve offered myself. Before Snyder’s 1989 hire, the Wildcats were one of the most miserable power-conference programs in the country (along with Northwestern). Four years later, they began a streak of eight straight top-20 finishes and nearly made 1998’s BCS title game.

As of Jan. 16, 2026, comparing Indiana to K-State still works well. Sure, Cignetti vaulted to title contention much more quickly than Snyder did, but there’s context. Snyder didn’t have Indiana’s huge and well-off alumni base, let alone a portal.

But what if Indiana wins on Monday night, completing not just a shocking rise, but also one of the most dominant postseasons in college football history? A Hoosiers title would so dramatically exceed even the Wildcats that it could only really be compared to other national champs.

But that’s where it gets tricky. Major college football has long been a uniquely hostile sport for upstarts. Eww! Boise State got a nice tournament spot! Change the rules! Gate-crashing champs are extremely rare, at least at the FBS level. So in any kind of modern era, there are almost zero viable Indiana counterparts.

The most recent first-time champ was 1996 Florida, a team with eight top-10 finishes in the previous 13 years. Hardly an out-of-nowhere champ like Cignetti’s Hoosiers would be.
BYU’s rapid rise to the 1984 title would count, except those social-climbing Cougars weren’t remotely as dominant as 2025 Indiana. 1984 was one of the two or three messiest seasons ever, and BYU was merely the last team standing.
Oregon would’ve been a decent 2025 Indiana comp … if the Ducks won it all in 2001. (And were significantly worse in the decades prior.) Even a non-power near-champ like 2008 Utah wouldn’t fit, since the 2000s Mountain West had several programs with better pedigrees than pre-Cignetti Indiana.

If Indiana wins a title by beating the Hurricanes, there will be one valid modern comparison, though. That comparison: well, the Hurricanes themselves.

In the 1970s, the main topic surrounding Miami’s football program was whether to shutter it. It’d been mediocre and/or bad for almost all of the previous 20 years. Few locals cared about the small, private “Suntan U” (1974 enrollment: 8,775) or its independent football team, not when Don Shula’s champion Dolphins were right there in the same stadium. Miami dropped basketball in 1971 for financial reasons and was paying local radio to carry its football games.

In 1979, a madman named Howard Schnellenberger showed up, proclaiming that a program with a 14-29 record over the previous four years would win a national title within the next four years. This was far bolder than even Cignetti’s “Google me,” since Schnelly had little track record worth boasting about. The former Shula assistant’s only previous head-coaching gig was going 4-13 with the Baltimore Colts.

The hard job remained hard. Upon taking over the Canes, “his staff literally had to scrounge for nickels and dimes to call their recruits from the corner pay phone,” Bruce Feldman wrote. Cignetti might’ve had to do that kind of thing back in Division II, but not at Indiana.

However, Schnellenberger’s Canes hit that four-year deadline anyway, beating the almighty Nebraska Cornhuskers in 1983’s de facto title game. Out of nowhere, a team without a single first-team All-American beat one of the bluest bluebloods (at the time, yes). Miami even started that season 0-1, losing 28-3 to rival Florida, just to make the whole thing as improbable as possible.

As with Cignetti’s masterful use of Indiana’s resources, Schnellenberger did it partly by making full use of overlooked riches. In the days before cheap flights, digital film and direct messages made it so everyone can recruit South Florida, he sought to establish a “State of Miami” wall around his backyard’s talent — astoundingly underappreciated, at least in hindsight.

In a run-first era of college football, the former NFL OC deployed future first-round QB Bernie Kosar in a pro-style passing offense long before that term became a cliché. (Unlike with Cignetti’s veteran-heavy roster, Schnellenberger also worked his players extremely hard.)

After 1983, the gold-chain Canes’ non-stop parade of future Pro Bowlers would also win three of the next eight titles. That sentence would’ve sounded incomprehensible to anyone who’d just returned from a decade on a desert island, about as farfetched as Indiana being 15-0 right now. By 1995, Sports Illustrated was calling for The U to drop its rule-breaking football program … just 16 years after locals were barely aware the program even existed.

Cinderella’s coronation in 1983 was at the old Orange Bowl in Miami, by the way. About 13 miles from where she’ll wear crimson on Monday night. This time, the Canes are the multi-time champ, though they’re also once again the underdog (-8.5 at BetMGM). Get the feeling they like it that way.

More title game:

Quick Snaps

👏 Ever wonder when and why clapping replaced the long-iconic “hut, hut, hike!” as the way for a college QB to call for a snap?

🏆 Nebraska’s Ndamukong Suh and Pitt’s Aaron Donald, college football’s two best defensive tackles of this century, will enter the College Football Hall of Fame in the same class. Also in: Heisman winner Mark Ingram, coaches Gary Patterson and Chris Petersen and 17 more.

🫩 At this week’s annual American Football Coaches Association conference in Charlotte, everyone was very tired. (Also an interesting note in there on G5 coaches tracking whether transfers to Power 4 teams are logging significant snaps. If not, they can argue players might be better off sticking around.)

Those coaches also voted to recommend players be allowed to participate in nine games during redshirt seasons, up from four. As our AFCA story above notes, lots of coaches are even interested in replacing redshirts with five blanket years of eligibility. Would be simpler! And then somebody pushes for six.
“The Tennessee judge who paved the way for Diego Pavia to play this season denied a request Thursday for a preliminary injunction to a group of athletes who are … seeking a fifth year of eligibility.”
Portal Stuff: Ripple effects everywhere

Days after Oregon’s season ended, QB Dante Moore decided against being a likely top-10 2026 NFL Draft pick, returning for his second year as a starter (along with parts of a rough 2023 at UCLA).

“Coming back is the best thing for me, to make sure that when that day does happen, that I’m fully prepared,” he said live on “SportsCenter” two days ago.

Three things:

Oregon is loaded for next season, both in terms of returnees and newcomers. Expectations going up after two straight Playoff washouts.
Too loaded? Former Nebraska QB Dylan Raiola also just signed on, but will likely be one of football’s most expensive backups. Hey, it ain’t my money.
With Mendoza penciled in at No. 1 to the Raiders, Moore had looked likely to be a New York Jet at No. 2. (Staying in school is no way to avoid the Jets, since they’ll be picking No. 2 regardless of the year.) Now that Moore’s out, slide various Buckeyes up in your mock drafts.

Elsewhere in portal stuff, as 2026’s only transfer window closes today:

Look at you, Dabo Swinney, taking twice as many transfers in the past two weeks as in the previous four years combined! After this season’s collapse eliminated any remaining doubt, Clemson had to modernize.
Alabama QB Ty Simpson, entering the NFL Draft, indicated Miami and Ole Miss offered him $6.5 million to transfer instead.
The All-Transfer Portal Team of players making their way to their fourth or fifth schools (or seventh, in the case of new Incarnate Word QB TJ Finley). College is all about experiencing the world.

More next week, wrapping up the portal. And, uh, the season itself. At the same time. Yeah, they really gotta fix this calendar. Holler at untilsaturday@theathletic.com if you wanna!

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