CLEVELAND, Ohio — Urban Meyer has seen it all in college football.
He’s a three-time national champion, a Hall of Fame coach and an elite talent evaluator. But what he witnessed on the field before Indiana’s semifinal showdown with Oregon left him speechless—and may have redefined what coaching excellence truly means in college football.
Meyer didn’t watch Indiana’s pregame warmups from the stands. He went into “full coach mode,” walking right onto the field among the players, sizing them up face-to-face, and evaluating every aspect of their preparation.
What he discovered was something he’d never seen before. Not even in his championship teams at Florida and Ohio State.
“I’m telling you, Mark, I have never witnessed a team that is fully maximized,” Meyer declared on The Triple Option podcast. “I like to think we did a good job coaching. I imagine Nick Saban did a good job bringing the best out of his teams and some of these great coaches, Ryan Day, and Dan Lanning, etc. I’m telling you what I saw, the wide receiver group, Charlie Becker, (Omar) Cooper Jr. and (Elijah) Sarratt, they are maximized.”
That’s not just high praise. That’s a Hall of Fame coach admitting that what Curt Cignetti has built at Indiana exceeds what even the sport’s most legendary coaches have accomplished.
The most remarkable aspect? Indiana isn’t doing this with five-star recruits or future first-rounders. They’re winning with players that other programs overlooked or discarded.
“They’re a team full of misfits,” Mark Ingram II pointed out. “Guys who come together from all over the country of people who didn’t believe in them and now you get this coach who believes in them, coaches them hard, establishes this culture, and now you’re seeing the effects of that.”
That’s exactly what makes Indiana’s rise so compelling.
They’ve taken players with limited physical gifts and squeezed every drop of potential from them through culture, coaching, and player development. The result is a team that has outscored opponents by a staggering +473 margin this season, reportedly the highest differential ever in college football.
Meyer called it “an absolute case study on how to maximize a player and maximize a team,” adding that in his nearly 20 years as a head coach, he never had a team reach this level of maximization.
“I’m embarrassed. Not like this team,” Meyer said of maximizing his teams’ potential. “This team is you’re witnessing... I hear the greatest team in college football history potentially.”
The fascinating challenge for Cignetti now becomes maintaining this culture as success brings higher-caliber recruits to Bloomington.
As the conversation highlighted, programs like Mark Dantonio’s Michigan State faced similar challenges of building success with overlooked players, then struggling to maintain the same culture when blue-chip recruits started arriving.
But Indiana is already planning for sustained success, securing key transfers even while preparing for their championship showdown with Miami. As Meyer noted, the Hoosiers aren’t just winning on the field. They’re establishing a foundation that could transform them from a one-year wonder into a perennial contender.
That’s why Meyer’s assessment matters so much.
When a coach of his caliber calls Indiana “one of the greatest phenomenons in college football history,” it’s not hyperbole. It’s recognition that we may be witnessing a program that’s rewriting what’s possible in the sport.