Underdogs Yet Favorites, Indiana Football Continues Defying Odds in CFP Run

College Football Hall of Fame (Atlanta) — No college football team in recent history has ever overcome 100-to-1 odds to win the national championship, and No. 1-ranked Indiana is two wins from doing just that. 

Friday, Curt Cignetti can take his program one step closer.

As the Indiana head coach stepped to the podium Thursday at the College Football Hall of Fame to accept the Bobby Dodd Trophy, awarded to the best FBS coach, in the same building where his father, Frank Cignetti, was inducted into immortality, he reflected on how his journey had never brought him inside the house where the sport showcases its history, its legends.

"We were in fall camp at IUP," Cignetti said about missing his father's 2013 induction, "and I wasn’t gonna miss practice."

That devotion to craft, to routine, to setting a high standard carried Cignetti through a successful career to land in Bloomington. Now, he and the Hoosiers are positioned to be the first team in at least 25 years to overcome 100-to-1 (+10000) preseason odds, should they win a national championship, according to FOX Sports Research and Sports Odds History.

"I bet on myself," he said. "It was a very unorthodox move, I mean, almost crazy move. And I thought I was crazy a few mornings waking up that first month. But here I am today."

He bet on himself again when he took over Indiana — a program that hadn’t won a bowl game since 1991 (Copper Bowl). And he’s playing out one of the largest bets on talent evaluation and preparation the sport has seen to reach the CFP semifinals.

PASADENA, CA: DB D'Angelo Ponds, QB Fernando Mendoza and RB Roman Hemby of the Indiana Hoosiers celebrating after defeating the Alabama Crimson Tide in the CFP quarterfinal at the Rose Bowl on January 1, 2026, at the Rose Bowl Stadium. (Photo by John Cordes/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

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Wednesday night, as Hoosiers stars, including Heisman-winning quarterback Fernando Mendoza, center Pat Coogan and defensive back D'Angelo Ponds, entered Mercedes-Benz Stadium, where they will compete against No. 5 Oregon at the Peach Bowl semifinal, none looked overwhelmed by the sheer size of the stadium or what it is liable to look and feel like at kickoff.

They took their seats self-assuredly in front of members of the media and carried with them the fortitude earned from a season of beating every team they’ve faced this season. And yet, the odds of them winning the CFP national championship at kickoff in Week 1 were exactly 1 percent. Same was true as recently as Week 4.

If they defeat Oregon and then the winner of Thursday's Fiesta Bowl semifinal — No. 10 Miami or No. 6 Ole Miss — they'll overcome those historically remarkable long-shot odds. 

In fact, since 2002, only the 2010 Auburn squad has come close, and the Tigers’ chances of winning the national title at the start of the 2010 season were twice as good.

• 2002 Ohio State: 19-1
• 2003 LSU: 40-1
• 2010 Auburn: 50-1
• 2014 Ohio State: 40-1
• 2019 LSU: 25-1

Coogan — the center who was named Rose Bowl offensive MVP — doesn’t care what Indiana’s odds were to start the season or ahead of its Peach Bowl matchup with the Ducks. The odds didn’t get the Hoosiers to Atlanta. Coogan's and his teammates’ lived experience and scars losses have left on their psyche, let alone their bodies, are what he believes will power Indiana on Friday night.

"I think the mentality is more about who we are as people, what we’ve all gone through to get to this moment," said Coogan fewer than 48 hours before kickoff. "I really think it's who we are that brought us all together. 

"It's hard to deny that part. You can’t really get rid of a part of who you are, right? So while we all know that we've earned the right to be here, and we deserve to be here and everything that that entails, the second part is who we are as people. 

"And we are people with a chip on our shoulder."

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Chip on their shoulder, he said. The first time we heard that phrase in print came in May 20, 1830, edition of the Long Island Telegraph. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it reads, in part, "when two churlish boys were determined to fight, a chip [of wood] would be placed on the shoulder of one, and the other demanded to knock it off at his peril."

Boys, sure, but men make the same demand. Men with everything to prove, not to the world, not to an adoring public or even to the cloistered few who have earned the right to call that man friend, brother or son, but to one's own self. Coogan didn't speak from his place at the table like a man who knew or respected the odds anymore than he knew or respected the defensive linemen he had moved from Point A to Point B against their wills in 14 previous games.

He didn't speak on behalf of his teammates, as if he recognized the splendor of being the last remaining undefeated team in the sport and a starter on the consensus No. 1-ranked team.

Coogan spoke like a man who knows that odds don't mean much once he's on the field. He knows this game. He knows what it means to plant a hand into the dirt, muscle a snarl and explode off the snap like he might never get the chance to play the next play.

It's why he invoked the oft-used phrase of "chip on the shoulder." It's why the word "chip" is tattooed on my left shoulder, right next to my collar bone. It's there because I, too, recognized what it means to fight, to claw, to grind. What are 100-to-1 odds to a people who have nothing left to lose, like Coogan and the Hoosiers, who weren't expected to be this close to glory in January when the season began in August?

100-to-1 odds are for other people. They ain't for Indiana, which came to Atlanta with a chip on its shoulder looking for the Ducks to pick a fight.

RJ Young is a national college football writer and analyst for FOX Sports. Follow him @RJ_Young.

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