Author: Mike Schumann

As we approach the start of the 2026 season, ESPN has updated its popular College Football Power Index (FPI) this week. And the computer model doesn’t see Indiana as the most likely team to win what would be a repeat national title. In fact, FPI says five teams have better championship odds that the Hoosiers.  Here are the top-six: Ohio State Texas Notre Dame Oregon Georgia Indiana FPI represents how many points above or below average a team is.  Ohio State’s FPI score is 28.7, while Indiana is 23.1.  FPI becomes the basis for ESPN’s week-by-week game predictions. The model…

It would be disingenuous to have IU football coach Curt Cignetti anywhere but the top of any attempt to rank the nation’s best college football coaches right now. Similarly, it wouldn’t make much sense to exclude Cignetti from any preseason watch lists for awards that go to the nation’s best coach. And that’s the way things are playing out this summer ahead of the 2026 season — Cignetti’s third in Bloomington. After Cignetti led one of the best turnarounds in sports history over the last two seasons, it’s difficult to justify placing anyone in college football above him.  That’s what…

Class of 2027 national top-20 point guard NaVorro Bowman, Jr. is an IU basketball recruiting name to know. Indiana offered Bowman a scholarship in the spring.  He’s the son of former NFL Pro Bowler NaVorro Bowman, Sr., who played linebacker at Penn State. Bowman currently lives in Sherman Oaks, California where he attends Notre Dame H.S.  He posted 22.5 points, five assists and 4.9 rebounds per contest as a junior.  He’s originally from the Washington D.C. metro area where assistant coach Kenny Johnson has deep connections.  Bowman was a high school teammate of IU guard Darren Harris for a year…

Chalk up another win for Curt Cignetti. TCU head coach Sonny Dykes has conceded in their back-and-forth related to quarterback Josh Hoover. Dykes raised some eyebrows this spring when he appeared to be taking an unsolicited shot at Hoover by mentioning his relatively high turnover rate. “I think Josh started 31 games here as a quarterback, and he turned the ball over 42 times in those 31 starts,” Dykes said. That prompted a response from Cignetti, who said Hoover will be in a better position to thrive at Indiana. “When Josh got here, he met his two new best friends…

The money was better at Georgia and Miami. But Fernando Mendoza saw his younger brother’s football knowledge soar in one year with the IU coaching staff. He had to know more. “My brother (Alberto) was at Indiana. I saw first hand how much he developed from high school with that coaching in his first year,” Mendoza said on The Rush with Max Crosby.  “I’m like, this guy basically has more football IQ than me. And I’ve been three years in college.” The Indiana staff promised the one thing they knew they could deliver:  Development.  And in the end they provided…

Did IU basketball emphasize getting bigger at the expense of the three-point shooting? Second-year Indiana coach Darian DeVries doesn’t think so. In fact, he believes some of that added size in the frontcourt will be part of the solution when the Hoosiers take the court in 2026-27. Shooting threes was a major part of IU’s identity last season.  More than half of their attempts from the field (50.5%) came from beyond the arc — the highest percentage ever by a Hoosiers squad — by a wide margin.  That three-point volume was the 14th-highest in the nation.  And their 34.7% make…

IU football quarterback Fernando Mendoza has been selected as the 2025-26 Big Ten Conference Jesse Owens Male Athlete of the Year, the league announced on Wednesday. Mendoza is the sixth IU athlete to earn the award, and the first since track and field star Derek Drouin in 2013. This is the second such honor for the Hoosiers’ football program, as Mendoza joins College Football Hall of Famer Anthony Thompson, who won in 1990. Beyond Mendoza, Drouin and Thompson, the other three male winners from IU were Jim Spivey (track, cross country, 1982), Sunder Nix (track, 1984) and Steve Alford (basketball,…

BLOOMINGTON — For the third time this summer, The Daily Hoosier attended an IU basketball practice Tuesday morning in Cook Hall. Here are my notes from the two-hour session. – This practice was the first time I watched when Villanova transfer guard Bryce Lindsay was available, so he was someone to naturally keep a closer eye on. – Lindsay is very similar to Darren Harris with his simple, pure shot mechanics and quick release. There’s no wasted motion. He’s proven at this level, after shooting 38.2% from three on 432 attempts over the past two seasons. He made threes in…

Omar Cooper, Jr. had the greatest catch in IU football history at Penn State in November. But he doesn’t even count it as one of the top two standout plays of Indiana’s 2025 national championship season. Cooper says Fernando Mendoza’s fourth quarter touchdown run in the final game was in his top two, along with D’Angelo Ponds pick-six against Oregon in the College Football Playoff national semifinal. “That was just crazy,” Cooper, Jr. said on the New York Jets podcast of Ponds’ interception.  “I was not expecting that.” Nobody was expecting what happened on that tone-setting first play from scrimmage…

The top center in the 2027 class will be in Bloomington for the first weekend in September. Top-20 center Darius Wabbington will visit IU the weekend of September 5, coinciding with the start of the 2026 IU football season. The 6-foot-11 Arizona product recently announced his final six schools are Indiana, Arizona, Kentucky, North Carolina, Louisville and Texas. He also has September/October visits set so far for Louisville, Arizona and Texas as he trends towards a late fall decision. “I’ll probably just be looking at my relationship with the coaches, and then the style of play. Those are the two…