Shama: Indiana Football Success Hangs Over Gopher Program

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BleedGopher

BleedGopher

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Per Shama:

Why can’t the football Golden Gophers duplicate the success of Indiana the last two seasons?

University of Minnesota athletic director Mark Coyle hears that question from Gopher fans. Minnesota hasn’t won a national championship since 1960. The last Big Ten title was a co-championship in 1967. The Gophers have never been to the College Football Playoff.

Indiana had close to the worst reputation in major college before coach Curt Cignetti arrived following the 2023 season. After head turning success at James Madison and other lower-level programs, Cignetti told the world upon arrival in Bloomington: ”It’s pretty simple. I win. Google me.”

And then he did.

The 2024 Hoosiers shockingly went 11-2 overall, 8-1 in Big Ten games. The “Miracle Man” delivered even more in 2025, coaching the Hoosiers to a perfect 16-0 record that included Big Ten and national championships.

“I give them a lot of credit,” Coyle told Sports Headliners. “It’s The most unique thing that I’ve seen in college athletics.”

Cignetti has a gift for watching tape and evaluating players, and he’s a tireless worker who sets the highest standards for execution and performance. He brought a boat load of older players to Bloomington via the transfer portal, mostly three-star recruits in high school, and went out and beat the blue bloods of college football with their four- and five-star rosters.

Now the transformation is complete. Elite players want to wear the IU uniform. Name, Image and likeness money is pouring in to pay players. The stadium is sold out. “Coach Cig” has a new contract that averages $13.2 million per year through 2033. And, oh yes, Indiana is among the favorites to win the next College Football Playoff and the national championship.

Coyle is proud of his program under head coach P.J. Fleck who starts his 10th season at Minnesota in late August with a home game against Eastern Illinois. “I could not be more pleased with the progress we’re making with our football program, and we continue to expect to build it and compete at a high level,” Coyle said earlier this month.

What about the Indiana comparison? “It can be done here (Indiana like success),” Coyle said.


Go Gophers!!
 


GophersInIowa said:
It was timing for Cignetti. He had a lot of talent he could bring with him to have immediate impacts and then a substantial increase in NIL funds available to him.
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And an incredibly weak 1st year schedule which helped pad his record and build interest level/bring in donors. Perfect storm.
 

GophersInIowa said:
It was timing for Cignetti. He had a lot of talent he could bring with him to have immediate impacts and then a substantial increase in NIL funds available to him.
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Yep....everything came together perfectly for them. And teams will be chasing that same quick turnaround and almost all of them will fail miserably and not come anywhere close.
 



GopherTheJugular said:
No, it doesn't.
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It probably does some for the casual fan that really doesn't understand what is going on in college athletics right now.

Those people might see a downtrodden team like Indiana rise to the top and think if they can do it then everyone else should be able to as well. Those people would be wrong of course but I can see where that thought process could come from.

But yeah....has been discussed a ton here....Indiana is 100% an exception and not the rule...they are the absolute definition of catching lightning in a bottle where everything came together perfectly for them.
 



It hangs over every program. How do you think fans of programs with massive fanbases who dump millions in donations and then get beat by the same gopher team who are supposed to be so broken up about Indiana's success feel? Cignetti can flat out coach, he has a billionaire bankrolling his roster and they have had quite a bit of schedule luck.
 




Three things.

Identify high quality talent. having the resources to sign them, and then the coaching staff and culture to get them to produce. Cig hit the perfect storm.

Minnesota is not alone in trying to make that happen. But I don’t see it.

Can Cig maintain what he has built? Stay tuned.
 

BleedGopher said:
Per Shama:

Why can’t the football Golden Gophers duplicate the success of Indiana the last two seasons?

University of Minnesota athletic director Mark Coyle hears that question from Gopher fans. Minnesota hasn’t won a national championship since 1960. The last Big Ten title was a co-championship in 1967. The Gophers have never been to the College Football Playoff.

Indiana had close to the worst reputation in major college before coach Curt Cignetti arrived following the 2023 season. After head turning success at James Madison and other lower-level programs, Cignetti told the world upon arrival in Bloomington: ”It’s pretty simple. I win. Google me.”

And then he did.

The 2024 Hoosiers shockingly went 11-2 overall, 8-1 in Big Ten games. The “Miracle Man” delivered even more in 2025, coaching the Hoosiers to a perfect 16-0 record that included Big Ten and national championships.

“I give them a lot of credit,” Coyle told Sports Headliners. “It’s The most unique thing that I’ve seen in college athletics.”

Cignetti has a gift for watching tape and evaluating players, and he’s a tireless worker who sets the highest standards for execution and performance. He brought a boat load of older players to Bloomington via the transfer portal, mostly three-star recruits in high school, and went out and beat the blue bloods of college football with their four- and five-star rosters.

Now the transformation is complete. Elite players want to wear the IU uniform. Name, Image and likeness money is pouring in to pay players. The stadium is sold out. “Coach Cig” has a new contract that averages $13.2 million per year through 2033. And, oh yes, Indiana is among the favorites to win the next College Football Playoff and the national championship.

Coyle is proud of his program under head coach P.J. Fleck who starts his 10th season at Minnesota in late August with a home game against Eastern Illinois. “I could not be more pleased with the progress we’re making with our football program, and we continue to expect to build it and compete at a high level,” Coyle said earlier this month.

What about the Indiana comparison? “It can be done here (Indiana like success),” Coyle said.


Go Gophers!!
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Surprisingly their recruiting isn’t off to that great of a start according to rankings.
 

I thought we've been over this before. There are many variables in play for Indiana that led to their success that the Gophers don't really have. I do think if we found a handful of donors willing to throw money around, things could flip around.
 



gophmeister said:
It hangs over every program. How do you think fans of programs with massive fanbases who dump millions in donations and then get beat by the same gopher team who are supposed to be so broken up about Indiana's success feel? Cignetti can flat out coach, he has a billionaire bankrolling his roster and they have had quite a bit of schedule luck.
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Yep I think this stings the Oregons and Miamis of the world far more than it does programs at our level. If anything it builds hope for programs at our level that it can be done
 

Bayfield Gopher said:
Three things.

Identify high quality talent. having the resources to sign them, and then the coaching staff and culture to get them to produce. Cig hit the perfect storm.

Minnesota is not alone in trying to make that happen. But I don’t see it.

Can Cig maintain what he has built? Stay tuned.
Click to expand...
Cig has all three and as long as he has the resources he will keep winning. I think just about every staff can identify, and I think fleck and co have done a pretty good job making out what they have, they usually have a better returning base of talent than most programs, but resources are a big deal if we want to elevate to the next step on a consistent basis
 

GophersInIowa said:
It was timing for Cignetti. He had a lot of talent he could bring with him to have immediate impacts and then a substantial increase in NIL funds available to him.
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Plus Coach Sanders took the sting off of sending many established players to the bench, or encouraging players to leave the program. A few players here and there was always accepted, now with NIL, most anything goes.
 

Having a Heisman Trophy winning QB that was clearly the best QB in the country last year put them over the top. He probably won't have one of them every year. He's a great coach, but he also had some luck fall his way. That's often the case.
 

The Deliberate Stranger said:
I would say it hangs over a program like Wisconsin more as they went away from what worked for 30 years to bring whom they thought was a savior
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No, I don’t think so for those of us say right around 60 years old who used to tongue-in-cheek say that we’d like to get to the Rose Bowl once before we die that’s now become a reality. I get that the Rose Bowl is not the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow anymore with the playoff system, but you know what I mean. Wisconsin has had glory days three decades more recently than we have.
 

Nope, not hanging over the Program to this fan.

I've been watching the Football Gods now for 56 years and understand that sometimes good fortune finds any team any given Saturday, season, or even decade(s). Just the way it is.

Oh, the Football Gods are talking about us. Let's listen in...

1781739415880.png
 

Gopherchase said:
No, I don’t think so for those of us say right around 60 years old who used to tongue-in-cheek say that we’d like to get to the Rose Bowl once before we die that’s now become a reality. I get that the Rose Bowl is not the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow anymore with the playoff system, but you know what I mean. Wisconsin has had glory days three decades more recently than we have.
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Well I was alive when the Gophers went to the Rose Bowl. But I think that I had just turned 5 when they played the second time. NO MEMORY OF IT! Damn!! I do recall my dad a few years later angrily complaning that for the first game vs. Washington we won that toss and elected to kick! Washington got the ball, drove the field and scored. He was not a big fan of some of Murray's decisions. I remain healthy and hoping that live long enough to see us in the playoffs. Go Gophers!
 

What’s Shana’s headline going to be nov 1 when Drake Lindsey and the Gophers go on the road and defeat the Hoosiers ?
 

There is no doubt if we could drop fleck today and get a national title coach, I would


Who is that guy?
I think we are more likely to downgrade than upgrade as a program if we made a change right now. But at some point would be good to strive for more.
I’m not ready to say unknown coach X has a better shot at a 10 win regular season than fleck yet.

The gophers have 1 10 win regular season post brown vs board and it was flecks and it was 7 seasons ago
 

BleedGopher said:
Per Shama:

Why can’t the football Golden Gophers duplicate the success of Indiana the last two seasons?

University of Minnesota athletic director Mark Coyle hears that question from Gopher fans. Minnesota hasn’t won a national championship since 1960. The last Big Ten title was a co-championship in 1967. The Gophers have never been to the College Football Playoff.

Indiana had close to the worst reputation in major college before coach Curt Cignetti arrived following the 2023 season. After head turning success at James Madison and other lower-level programs, Cignetti told the world upon arrival in Bloomington: ”It’s pretty simple. I win. Google me.”

And then he did.

The 2024 Hoosiers shockingly went 11-2 overall, 8-1 in Big Ten games. The “Miracle Man” delivered even more in 2025, coaching the Hoosiers to a perfect 16-0 record that included Big Ten and national championships.

“I give them a lot of credit,” Coyle told Sports Headliners. “It’s The most unique thing that I’ve seen in college athletics.”

Cignetti has a gift for watching tape and evaluating players, and he’s a tireless worker who sets the highest standards for execution and performance. He brought a boat load of older players to Bloomington via the transfer portal, mostly three-star recruits in high school, and went out and beat the blue bloods of college football with their four- and five-star rosters.

Now the transformation is complete. Elite players want to wear the IU uniform. Name, Image and likeness money is pouring in to pay players. The stadium is sold out. “Coach Cig” has a new contract that averages $13.2 million per year through 2033. And, oh yes, Indiana is among the favorites to win the next College Football Playoff and the national championship.

Coyle is proud of his program under head coach P.J. Fleck who starts his 10th season at Minnesota in late August with a home game against Eastern Illinois. “I could not be more pleased with the progress we’re making with our football program, and we continue to expect to build it and compete at a high level,” Coyle said earlier this month.

What about the Indiana comparison? “It can be done here (Indiana like success),” Coyle said.


Go Gophers!!
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Two things:

A school that isn't pleased with middle-of-the-road results and would be willing to invest in making MN a football school once again.

The second is Coaching, or lack thereof, in our case,

Some of this is tied to #1 (e.g., budgets for competent coordinators), and some is finding said competent coordinators who will work for Fleck and accept that average +/- is the expectation and measure of success by the administration, and anything more isn't really important. Exactly how Mediocrates answered Shama's question.

But we can always point to the murderers' row of high-quality teams we've beaten in bowl games, which equals one. Two, if you count New Mexico last year.

If the teams that took the field against us in bowl games under Fleck were a preseason schedule, it could be summed up in one word. Masonesque, except Auburn snuck in there.
 


BilldGopher said:
Nope, not hanging over the Program to this fan.

I've been watching the Football Gods now for 56 years and understand that sometimes good fortune finds any team any given Saturday, season, or even decade(s). Just the way it is.

Oh, the Football Gods are talking about us. Let's listen in...

View attachment 44688
Click to expand...
My boys and I watched Jason and the Argonauts for the first time a month or two back. So good!
Love the meme.
 

Multiple things can be true at the same time.

1)if we hired a coach as good as Cignetti, we could have a similar experience as Indiana

2) PJ has done well here and we have been reasonably successful during his tenure

3) evaluating coaches is hard, if we decided to move on from PJ to chase our Cignetti, we are much more likely to go down than up

I firmly believe all three of those things. The Indiana experience does have me ready to dismiss any claims that a good but not great season is "as good as possible" here. (Before everyone starts shouting about NIL money, Indiana' recruiting rankings havent bought them classes going into last year hadn't bought them talent that was better on paper than what we were able to get).

If we were to move on from PJ to chase our Cignetti, id believe two things (pending seeing who we actually hired): first, we would have increased our chances of winning a national title. Second, we would have decreased our expected win total for the foreseeable future. In other words, I think the unknown is more likely to be a step backwards than one forwards, but i also have seen enough of PJ to believe that he isnt going to take us to the next level. On balance, I think we should stick with PJ as our guy. Hes earned it.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Yep....everything came together perfectly for them. And teams will be chasing that same quick turnaround and almost all of them will fail miserably and not come anywhere close.
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UCLA has taken the exact same approach this year. I'll take the under on them winning 9 games in the B1G and winning the NC in 27.
 

gophmeister said:
It hangs over every program. How do you think fans of programs with massive fanbases who dump millions in donations and then get beat by the same gopher team who are supposed to be so broken up about Indiana's success feel? Cignetti can flat out coach, he has a billionaire bankrolling his roster and they have had quite a bit of schedule luck.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I think all the money Texas, Texas Tech, Oregon, USC, etc, have spent creates more animosity than for programs where, "eh, good enough" is the standard.
 

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