At the start of the college football season, no Division I program had more losses in its history than Indiana's 715 defeats.
But 15 weeks later, as we enter conference championship Saturday, that number remains unchanged as the 12-0 Hoosiers — ranked No. 2 in the country — prepare to face No. 1 Ohio State in Saturday's Big Ten title game.
Indiana, the school and state synonymous with basketball, is now a pigskin powerhouse on the precipice of its second straight College Football Playoff.
The school's fans are as shocked as everyone else.
"Hell no," Mark Cuban, the billionaire multihyphenate and 1981 graduate of Indiana's business school, told NBC News via email if he ever thought the Hoosiers would be on the same level as a blue blood like Ohio State. "I thought I would be dunking with my feet before that would happen."
Galen Clavio, a 2001 IU grad who is currently an associate dean at the school, took it a step further: "It feels like someone beamed somebody else's team down to planet Earth and now they're wearing Indiana uniforms."
Clavio, who also hosts "CrimsonCast," a podcast about Hoosier sports, added: "I know that sounds hyperbolic, but it really is hard to get your head wrapped around as someone like me who's been following that program for so long."
Indiana has had spurts of competence before, though the school has not won a bowl game since 1991. In 2020, the Hoosiers finished the season ranked 12th in the Associated Press poll, their first top-25 finish since 1988.
Cuban was in school during one of the program's best moments, a win in the Holiday Bowl after the 1979 season under then-head coach Lee Corso. Cuban was at a packed Motley's Pub when the Hoosiers upset an undefeated BYU team, a game that featured a memorable 62-yard punt return by Tim Wilbur.
But over the last half-century, the football program has paled in comparison to its basketball counterpart, which has made five Final Fours and won three national championships since 1976. The basketball success came under the direction of a legendary though ultimately controversial figure in Bobby Knight.
The football team now has its own mythmaking figure in charge (and without any off-field baggage): Curt Cignetti, who in two seasons since joining the school from James Madison has led Indiana to a 23-2 record and all but clinched back-to-back CFP appearances.
At Cignetti's first press conference as head coach, he was asked how he could turn around one of college football's dormant programs and responded with a prophetic phrase.
"I win," Cignetti said. "Google me."
And that's what Cignetti did, leading the school to an 11-2 record and to 10th in the final rankings in his first year at the helm, IU's best finish in the final poll since 1967. The head coach's confidence — and ability to back it up — has energized the fan base.
"He is a Pittsburgh guy," Cuban said. "He has the yinzer accent, the hard-work pedigree, and the gumption to say what he will do and back it up."
Said Clavio: "Cignetti, his staff and the players that they bring in, there's a professionalism and a focus and a discipline about them that looks like what you see at top football programs. What's exciting about it for me and for a lot of other IU fans is that it feels sustainable because it feels like an actual program now. It's not dependent on one good player or one good recruiting class."
The emergence of the football team as a legitimate contender has created a massive spike in fan interest.
Earlier this year, Cuban made his first donation to the school's athletic department. He said he talks to athletic director Scott Dolson "all the time" and will help the school any way he can.
Clavio, who was also an IU sports fan growing up, said in his 30 years attending football games, he's never seen the student section full before the start of every game as he has this season.
Alex Bozich is the co-founder and editor of "Inside the Hall," a website launched in 2007 to cover all things Hoosier basketball. Beginning this season, for the first time, Bozich had his staff start covering football full time as well.
"Cignetti, the way he presented himself early in the media, he was kind of a driving force for the excitement," Bozich said. "We've noticed, in terms of the comments that we're getting on stories, there's a lot of people engaged and just excited in general about following the team."
The excitement spreads from Bloomington to as far as California.
Scott Rappaport is a 2004 IU grad who is currently the president of the school's alumni association in Los Angeles. He used to ask the school's designated bar, State Social House (which is mainly a Texas Longhorns hangout), for a couple tables for football watch-alongs, trying to entice alums to attend with mimosa breakfasts.
Last year, Rappaport noticed excitement grow as the season went along, with crowds increasing from 20 people to 50 to, finally, by the time Indiana and Ohio State faced off in an undefeated matchup last November, close to 150. Fans were lined up outside State Social House well before the 9 a.m. local start time.
"We're like, OK, this is definitely different," Rappaport said. "Football has definitely been bigger the last two years than basketball."
Rappaport said Cignetti hasn't only changed the school's fortunes, but he's also changed the fans' expectations.
"We have all these points of getting out of the old IU fan mindset, where we're thinking, 'We're gonna blow it,' to thinking, 'Cig is our coach, this is different, we expect to win pretty much every game.'"
While Saturday's game may not be the highest-stakes one of Cignetti's brief tenure — that would be the first-round defeat to Notre Dame in last year's playoff — it is still incredibly important to the school.
The Hoosiers have not beaten the Buckeyes since 1988. Indiana has not won a Big Ten championship since 1967. And the school has never been ranked No. 1 in football in its entire history, which would happen with a victory.
The Hoosiers enter after a perfect regular season that included wins against No. 9 Illinois and on the road against No. 3 Oregon. Indiana was led by quarterback (and Heisman Trophy candidate) Fernando Mendoza, a transfer from Cal who threw for 2,758 yards and 32 touchdowns, while running for six more scores.
"People couldn't be more excited for the opportunity to watch IU in the Big Ten championship, especially right up the road in Indianapolis," Bozich said. "It's going to be a special, special moment for a lot of IU fans who have waited a long time to see something like this."
When asked what it would mean for the Hoosiers to play in the national championship game, Clavio said it's not something he could even fully comprehend.
"That's like asking me how it would feel if someone offered me to land on the moon tomorrow," he said. "To be able to see them on that prominent of a stage would be the most fulfilling thing I could ever experience as a sports fan."
