No, it was not a dream. The Indiana Hoosiers—the program that up until earlier this season, had the most losses in college football history—really are the national champions. Curt Cignetti authored a 16-0 season, with Lincoln Riley and other coaches having to sit and watch.
Historic and unprecedented
There is quite literally zero precedent for what head coach Curt Cignetti has done in Bloomington. In two years, he took a program with essentially zero history of success in football and turned them into one of the most dominant teams in recent memory. And perhaps most remarkably, he did it with barely any former four and five-star recruits on his roster.
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Cignetti is the exception to every rule. It would be impossible for any other coach or program to duplicate what he has accomplished at Indiana. But that is not going to stop teams from trying.
Preaching patience
The reality is that, fair or not, Cignetti has made life significantly more difficult for every single moderately successful head coach in the country. That group includes USC head coach Lincoln Riley.
For the past few years, Riley has preached patience to the USC administration and fanbase. He has stressed that rebuilds do not happen overnight, and that it takes time to get the right pieces in place—both in terms of players and coaches/staff. Based on most of college football history, that is indeed the case.
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So much for that
But what happens when a guy from James Madison shows up to a perennial Big Ten doormat and, in just two years, turns them into the best team in the country? All of a sudden, the patience argument loses a ton of credibility.
College football isn’t fair
Is it fair to hold other coaches to the Cignetti standard? Of course not. What the man just did is probably the greatest coaching job in college football history. You could make a legitimate argument that him winning one title at Indiana is more impressive than Nick Saban winning six at Alabama.
But like life itself, college football is not always fair. Because of what Cignetti has done at Indiana, other programs are going to start have less patience with their head coaches and holding them to higher standards.
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How it affects Lincoln Riley
Lincoln Riley is one of many coaches who could be affected by this. Riley has been at USC for twice as long as Cignetti has been at Indiana. While the roster that he inherited from former head coach Clay Helton was far from great, it was much better than the one in Bloomington when Cignetti arrived. And USC invests more into its football program than Indiana does.
Let’s say that USC goes 9-3 again next season. That would not be a bad year, especially with the Trojans’ difficult schedule. In the past, that would not have been grounds to fire a head coach.
However, that would mean five seasons at USC for Riley and still no playoff appearances. Could athletic director Jennifer Cohen really justify giving Riley a sixth season when it took Cignetti a third of that time to win the whole thing?
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Cignetti has changed the entire landscape
Riley is far from the only coach in this situation. What Cignetti has done at Indiana is one of the greatest stories in not just college football history, but sports history. But the flip side is that he has made life more difficult for nearly every other head coach in the country.
Congratulations to the Hoosiers. You just put together one of the best seasons that we have ever seen.
The 2026 season officially begins now. And for Lincoln Riley, the pressure is on.
This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: Curt Cignetti and Indiana have lapped Lincoln Riley and USC football
