Indiana vs. Miami: College football playoff national championship preview
Preview of the college football playoff national championship game between Indiana and Miami, featuring key players, strategies, and predictions.
MANHATTAN — Those who love Kansas State football will tell you to watch a documentary on YouTube to learn about the greatest turnaround in college football history.
“The Miracle in Manhattan” is a nearly hour-long documentary that tells the story of Kansas State‘s rise from “Futility U” and being on the brink of losing its Division I status to hiring the legendary Bill Snyder, who built Kansas State into a Big 12 championship contender and the respected program it is today.
Before Snyder’s hiring in 1989, the Wildcats had two consecutive winless seasons and had never won a bowl game. Building Kansas State into a consistent winner was once thought impossible, but Snyder found a way in his 27 seasons before a successful stint under Chris Klieman, who recently handed the reins to Collin Klein.
For decades, Kansas State has owned the “greatest turnaround” title without any challengers. Only recently has there been one considered to rival it, as the “Miracle in Bloomington” may be being filmed right before our eyes.
Indiana‘s rise to being a college football powerhouse under Curt Cignetti has drawn plenty of comparisons to what Snyder did for Kansas State in the decades before. Cignetti will coach the top-ranked Hoosiers in the College Football Playoff National Championship on Monday, Jan. 19, against No. 10 Miami.
Like what Snyder did in Manhattan, Cignetti has done what was once unimaginable for Indiana football.
Over 21 seasons from 1994 to 2014, the Hoosiers made just one bowl. In the 27 seasons before Cignetti’s hiring, the Hoosiers went 113-204. In 82 of the program’s first 126 seasons, it had a losing record.
It was the modern-day “Futility U,” and it now has the Heisman Trophy winner in its second-straight College Football Playoff appearance, it’s the No. 1 team in the country and a win away from winning its first national championship.
Indiana, typically known as a basketball school, being in a position to win a championship in football after decades of irrelevance has led some of the biggest names in the sport to declare it the “greatest turnaround,” even as they tip their caps to what Snyder did in Manhattan.
“With all due respect to Bill Snyder and Kansas State, but this is the greatest turnaround in college football history,” ESPN’s Rece Davis declared a day after Indiana won the Big Ten Championship, while announcing the Hoosiers as the No. 1 seed in the College Football Playoff.
What Cignetti has done at Indiana has been nothing short of remarkable, as he’s established himself as one of the sport’s great coaches. His Bill Belichick-like seriousness on the sideline, combined with a deserved confidence whenever he’s in front of a microphone, has made him one of the more captivating figures. He also wins; Google him.
While Cignetti and Snyder’s rebuilds are considered the best by many, there are differences in how they were accomplished, both having taken place in completely different eras.
Cignetti’s has been done in an era when rosters could be flipped from year to year via the transfer portal, while players are paid via Name, Image, and Likeness dollars and revenue-share payments directly from the university. A billionaire donor and Hoosier alum like Mark Cuban could help finance the roster, while Heisman Trophy quarterback Fernando Mendoza was allowed to transfer from California to Indiana and play immediately.
None of that is said to disparage what Cignetti has done, as he’s done it better than anyone else in the sport. He still had to establish the belief that winning football could be accomplished at Indiana while attracting players to play for a team that had never won at a high level, in a league that tends to run through college football blue bloods like Ohio State and Michigan. A win on Monday night would make the Hoosiers the first team to finish 16-0 since Yale in 1894.
Snyder’s rebuild came at a time when paying players would have resulted in Kansas State receiving harsh penalties. Rather than finding experienced players in the portal, Kansas State had to go to small towns and junior colleges, hoping to find diamonds in the rough. They then had to convince them to play for “America’s most hapless program” with little money, little fan support and little hope.
Yet, Snyder and Kansas State found a way. Bill Snyder Family Stadium stands tall. The program has won three Big 12 championships, sat atop the Coaches Poll at one point in 1998, competed in some of the best bowls and it wouldn’t be a surprise if it were to one day find itself in a College Football Playoff.
Both Cignetti and Snyder have both accomplished feats that many thought were impossible. They did so in different ways and at different times, leading to the resurrection of once-irrelevant programs and making them matter in the national eye. Whose rebuild is best will be in the eye of the beholder.
Snyder has a documentary, and may be deserving of more, while Cignetti’s story is still in development. A win in Monday’s College Football Playoff National Championship against Miami would be a heck of an ending, although he doesn’t appear to be slowing down any time soon.
On New Year’s Day, after handing Alabama a 38-3 loss in a CFP quarterfinal at the Rose Bowl, Cignetti was asked how he would describe the Hoosiers’ improbable turnaround in recent years.
Cignetti responded: “It would be one hell of a movie.”
Wyatt D. Wheeler covers Kansas State athletics for the USA TODAY Network and Topeka Capital-Journal. You can follow him on X at @WyattWheeler_, contact him at 417-371-6987 or email him at wwheeler@usatodayco.com
