Survival or extinction in college football: The lessons within Indiana’s miraculous ascent
Indiana’s unimaginable rise from nowhere to undefeated national champion stands as a beacon for perennial losers, the almost-there crowd and traditional basketball schools alike.
It’s a warning sign, as well, for the Hoosiers did not begin the ascent when they hired a little-known, 62-year-old coach from James Madison on the final day of November in 2023.
Or when Curt Cignetti registered the first of what would become 27 wins over two seasons.
Or when they lured future Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza out of the transfer portal in December 2024.
That timeframe is all wrong, folks.
In reality, Indiana’s climb began five years ago, when newly appointed university president Pamela Whitten and recently hired athletic director Scott Dolson gazed into the sport’s future, spotted the gathering storm and hatched a plan that defied a century of Hoosier history.
Indiana, they concluded, had to become a football school.
“In the Big Ten, you need to be relevant in football to be a relevant member in your conference,” Dolson told Yahoo in the fall of 2024. “We don’t take for granted that we’re always a long-standing member of the Big Ten.
“We want to pay our fair share and be a valued member in football.”
And therein lies the lesson for basketball schools like Arizona and UCLA, the football non-blue bloods like Arizona State and Utah, the academic torch-bearers like Stanford and Cal and even the lower-resource schools like Washington State, Oregon State and Boise State.
College football’s Great Reckoning is coming.
The final shape is, of course, unknown. It could take the form of a super league with 32 or 48 teams. It could be a larger upper division of 60 or 70. It could be a realignment wave in which both the Big Ten and SEC expand to 24 teams and push everyone else to complete irrelevance.
Nobody knows. Not yet. But like objects in the mirror, the sport’s next era is closer than it appears.
The time elapsed since Whitten and Dolson hatched their plan (five years) matches the time looming until the first expiring contract in the chain of media rights agreements keeping the whole shebang from collapsing.
In 2030, the Big Ten’s deals with Fox, NBC and CBS expire.
In 2031, the Big 12’s contracts with ESPN and Fox conclude.
The following year, the College Football Playoff (ESPN) and NCAA Tournament (CBS and Warner Bros. Discovery) agreements end.
In 2034, the SEC’s deal with ESPN expires.
And within that window, the cost to depart the ACC plunges to a manageable amount for the handful of schools anxious to depart.
The Doomsday Clock is ticking.
Survival and extinction will be defined by football success on the field and media value at the negotiating table.
Sure, the Hoosiers found a unicorn, but they were prescient, too. They began to invest long before hiring Cignetti and thus had a foundation in place — an alignment of vision and expanding infrastructure — that allowed him to flourish.
“I felt a real commitment from Whitten and Dolson to get football going,” Cignetti told The Daily Hoosier in May.
“Football generates 90 percent of the athletic revenue across the country, and they wanted to get it rolling. I think you can win anywhere in America with the proper commitment from the top.”
Indiana’s football budget, by year, according to the Knight-Newhouse College Athletics Database:
FY2022: $31.8 million
FY2023: $34.2 million
FY2024: $61.6 million
At the beginning of that three-year window, the Hoosiers were $10 million below the Big Ten median.
By the end, they were $3 million above.
Total increase in dollars: 93.7 percent.
How does the commitment in Bloomington compare?
Over the same three-year span that Indiana’s football spending rose 93.7 percent, UCLA, another basketball school in the Big Ten, increased its dollar allocation by 23.7 percent to $45.8 million, according to the Knight-Newhouse database.
Meanwhile, Arizona State’s increased by 23.6 percent to $48.6 million.
Washington’s rose by 24.5 percent to $87.7 million.
Utah’s increased 30.7 percent to $52.4 million.
Oregon’s increased by 32.1 percent to $53.9 million.
And Arizona’s jumped by 43.2 percent to $43.2 million.
Those are just a few examples, and to be clear: The percentage increase and raw dollars involved don’t define success or failure. They won’t ensure survival or guarantee failure when the Great Reckoning unfolds in the early 2030s.
But the vast majority of schools across the ACC, Big 12, Big Ten and SEC — yes, even in the Big Ten and SEC — are looking to the future with the same level of concern Indiana’s administration held five years ago.
Because the path into a super league could be wide enough to accommodate just 32 schools.
The list starts with Ohio State and Notre Dame, with Texas and Michigan and Alabama. It’s easy enough to name another dozen.
Beyond that, a mad scramble could unfold.
Schools that seem obvious now could lose traction by the end of the decade. Schools we wouldn’t currently consider could become obvious selections.
After all, Indiana would have been a super league afterthought two years ago. But thanks to foresight and good fortune, the Hoosier have an open road to salvation.
There is room for others. Who’s next?
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