Sixteen-and-Oh, Then the NFL Came Calling: Indiana’s 2026 Season, by the Numbers

Let’s start where every Indiana conversation now starts: they won the whole thing. The Hoosiers went 16–0 in 2025 (the first 16-win season in the modern era) beat Ohio State in the Big Ten title game (their first win in that rivalry since 1988), dismantled Alabama and Oregon in the Playoff, and took down Miami 27–21 for the first national championship in the program’s 139-year history. It was the best season, by far, that Indiana football has ever had.

Then the NFL came calling. Heisman-winning quarterback Fernando Mendoza went No. 1 overall to the Raiders, the headliner of a program-record eight players drafted. The top two receivers, the top corner, the lead back, the tight end, the center, the middle linebacker: gone, most of them to the NFL. So the 2026 question isn’t “was it real?” (it was). It’s “can Curt Cignetti do it again after losing so much of the championship core?”

What BBMI’s model says

This is where we come in. BBMI’s preseason model has Indiana 5th nationally and 3rd of 18 in the Big Ten, behind only Ohio State and Oregon. That’s the honest read on a defending champ that returns a lot less than it lost: still elite, still a genuine top-five team, but a notch below the sport’s two heavyweights rather than the clear No. 1. It tracks with the market: BetMGM has Indiana at a 10.5-win total, and the Hoosiers remain among the handful of shortest-priced national-title contenders.

The schedule is where the repeat case gets interesting, because it’s kind. Indiana does not play Oregon, the non-conference is a cupcake tray (North Texas, Howard, Western Kentucky), and the Big Ten road slate is manageable. There’s exactly one game where BBMI makes Indiana an underdog, and it’s a big one. But the schedule isn’t automatic: trips to Michigan and Washington, plus USC at home, give the Hoosiers three more places where a repeat run can wobble.

No Oregon, a cupcake non-conference, and one game the model expects Indiana to lose.

Pick the favorites

Pick the favorites straight up and it’s 11–1: the model’s only projected loss all year is Ohio State. But the expected-win math (≈9.7) says that flatters it: across a Big Ten season, one of the double-digit win-leans (at Michigan, at Washington, USC at home) usually slips. Call the honest projection 10–2, and note what actually rides on that one October afternoon in Bloomington: not merely a Playoff bid (10–2 or 11–1 would leave Indiana in strong at-large position), but the undefeated repeat, the Big Ten title position, and a top playoff seed.

The Cignetti machine

Here’s why losing a championship roster doesn’t scare Indiana the way it would scare anyone else: Curt Cignetti has done this every single year. Josh Hoover will be his third straight portal quarterback (Kurtis Rourke in 2024, Mendoza in 2025, Hoover now), and the whole program is built the same way: identify, acquire, plug in, win. The title didn’t change the method; it validated it.

It did change his bank account. Indiana bumped Cignetti to an eight-year, $105.6 million deal through 2033, an average of $13.2 million a year, making him the highest-paid coach at a public university. His response, “I plan on retiring a Hoosier”, is the kind of thing that used to be unthinkable at Indiana. Crucially, he kept his coordinators: OC Mike Shanahan and DC Bryant Haines (the reigning Broyles Award winner as the nation’s top assistant) both re-upped. New quarterback, new skill players, new front, but the same brains calling it. That continuity is the quiet reason the model still believes.

Eight drafted is a program record; the 17-man portal class (with four players in ESPN’s top 100 newcomers, and rated the No. 2 portal class nationally) is how Cignetti backfills.

The quarterback question

Replacing a Heisman winner and No. 1 overall pick is the job, and Cignetti went to the portal for it. The man tasked with keeping the title run going is Josh Hoover, in from TCU: a 31-game starter with 9,629 career passing yards, ranked among the top quarterbacks in the transfer class. He’s not Mendoza (few are), but he’s a seasoned, high-volume passer walking into an offense that returns its playcaller after finishing third nationally in scoring.

The supporting cast is almost entirely rebuilt. With Cooper Jr. and Elijah Sarratt both drafted, the receiver room is new, headlined by Nick Marsh (Michigan State, Indiana’s highest-rated incoming transfer) and Shazz Preston (Tulane). Hoover’s job is simpler than it sounds: don’t be the reason a top-five roster loses. If he’s merely good, Shanahan’s system and the schedule do a lot of the rest.

The defense: still the backbone

The championship defense was elite, 2nd nationally in scoring, and while it lost corner D’Angelo Ponds and middle linebacker Aiden Fisher to the draft, it returns considerably more than the offense does: 66% of its production, 13th-most nationally. The model still grades it a top-tier unit, 4th nationally, 3rd in the Big Ten by BBMI’s defensive rating, reinforced by another wave of portal linemen. And the unit got an unexpected August boost when defensive linemen Stephen Daley and Kellan Wyatt were granted additional eligibility and returned for 2026: Daley led the Big Ten with 19 tackles for loss in 2025, and Wyatt was playing significant snaps before a season-ending knee injury. Other returners to know: DL Tyrique Tucker and Mario Landino, linebackers Rolijah Hardy and Isaiah Jones, and safety Amare Ferrell, who signed to come back.

With Haines still coordinating, and paid like a head coach in waiting, the expectation is the same as it’s been under Cignetti: a defense that travels, wins the field-position game, and keeps Indiana in every game it’s supposed to win. On a roster asking a new quarterback to find his footing, the defense being the sure thing is exactly the profile you’d want.

Recruit, retain, replace

The other previews in this series have all had an in-state angle: a homegrown quarterback, a fading walk-on pipeline. Indiana’s honest version is different: this roster is assembled, not inherited. But the interesting part isn’t that Cignetti buys a whole new team every January; it’s that he doesn’t. Indiana returns about 60% of its production, 35th nationally, with a notably experienced defense, which means the machine is more precise than a teardown: identify exactly which holes need a proven transfer (quarterback, receiver, the edges of the defensive front), pay up for those, and keep a real core around them. The championship roster was itself a portal build (Mendoza arrived from Cal, a Miami, Florida, native; others from James Madison and everywhere in between) and 2026 is the same method, refined. Whether you can keep winning at this level with this much annual turnover is one of the genuinely interesting questions in the sport, and Indiana is the test case.

The one that matters

Everything funnels to October 17, when Ohio State comes to Bloomington, the only sub-50% game on Indiana’s entire schedule, and a rematch with real weight. The last time these two met, Indiana beat the Buckeyes in the Big Ten Championship, a first since 1988, on the way to the title. Now the nation’s No. 1 team returns the visit, and BBMI makes Indiana a roughly 5-point home underdog, about 40% to win.

Win it and 12–0 is legitimately on the table. Lose it and 10–2 or 11–1 still leaves Indiana squarely in the Playoff race, a résumé that should give Indiana a strong at-large case. But for a program that spent a century as an afterthought and one magical fall as king, the point isn’t just to make the bracket. It’s to prove the first time wasn’t the last. (For the record: the actual rivalry game, the Old Oaken Bucket against Purdue on Nov 28, is not remotely in doubt: Cignetti is 2–0 versus the Boilermakers by a combined 122–3.)

BBMI is rolling out college football coverage as the season approaches. We’re getting closer! Model ratings are preseason and update as real games are played.