2024 wasn’t the first time IU football ascended the mountain and found itself in the national college football conversation.
In 1945 Bo McMillin’s Hoosiers completed the program’s only undefeated season and claimed its only Big Ten title. But two years later McMillin departed for the NFL and Indiana fell into complete disrepair. The Hoosiers experienced just one season with a winning record from 1948 to 1966.
In 1967 John Pont resurrected IU and led them to their only appearance in the Rose Bowl. But once again the rise was short-lived. Indiana would go 10 straight years without a winning record from 1969 to 1978.
Lee Corso and Tom Allen delivered a couple winning seasons each, but their tenures as the IU head coach started and ended in disappointment, with neither able to sustain success.
The longest run of winning seasons beyond McMillin came via Bill Mallory, who led Indiana to five winning campaigns in seven years from 1987 to 1993. But even Mallory’s successful run as head coach met a familiar fate, as Indiana went 1-15 in the Big Ten over his last two seasons, and he was fired.
IU AD Scott Dolson, an Indiana native and IU alumnus who has spent his entire career at the school knows this history better than anyone. And his knowledge of that past has spurred him on to action since Curt Cignetti took the college football world by storm last fall.
Supported by President Pam Whitten and the Board of Trustees, Dolson made quick maneuvers to renegotiate a new deal midseason in 2024 with Cignetti, then renegotiate deals with several assistants, and help secure significant funds for NIL for the players.
Indiana has provided unprecedented support for the football program under Dolson’s leadership.
“Last year was an incredible start,” Dolson told ESPN this week. “We are paranoid. We don’t want to be a one-hit wonder.”
The results from that paranoia appear to have Indiana set up for continued success in 2025.
This week ESPN ranked Indiana as having the fourth-best offseason among Big Ten programs, factoring in staff retention, net transfer portal results, and high school recruiting. The Hoosiers probably aren’t far from the national top-10 in this regard, because the only three teams ranked above IU in the Big Ten — Penn State, Oregon, and Illinois — were ranked in ESPN’s overall top-10 for best offseason.
According to ESPN, the Hoosiers had a better overall offseason than traditional powers Ohio State, Michigan and USC.
And from a player standpoint, headlining IU’s offseason were transfers Fernando Mendoza and Pat Coogan, who ESPN included in their top-100 transfer rankings this week. They say Mendoza is the No. 4 overall transfer (and No. 4 transfer QB), while Coogan was slotted as the No. 92 transfer overall and No. 2 center.
“Mendoza is one of the most undervalued players at the position in college football,” ESPN’s Tom Luginbill wrote in the piece. “He’s 6-5, a great athlete and is tough as nails. He was sacked a lot and kept getting back up. Mendoza can make all of the throws and is a sneaky, crafty athlete.”
What does it all mean?
ESPN ranked IU No. 17 in their post-spring way too early top-25 rankings.
And wouldn’t you know it — that’s exactly where the Hoosiers were heading into the 2021 season — following their previous last winning season in 2020.
It’s no wonder people are paranoid.
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