Curt Cignetti just won a national championship, sent eight players to the NFL Draft, and watched Fernando Mendoza go first overall. He is not stopping to admire any of it.

Cignetti sat down with On3's Chris Low last week at his office in Bloomington. His office had no trophies, no rings, no championship photos anywhere on the walls. That detail tells you everything about where his head is at.

"It's hard to make up for 90 years of futility in one year," Cignetti told On3. "We've got a lot we still want to do, on the field and off the field. It's a hard game. The minute you think you've arrived, you're done. But it's good to be in the discussion."

That quote cuts right to the heart of how Cignetti operates. Indiana went 16-0 and became the first FBS program in history to win a national title with a perfect record. However, Cignetti is already looking at the gaps.

He knows losing Mendoza, the No. 1 overall pick, along with seven other players to the Draft is not a small thing. Indiana lost eight players in April's Draft total. That is a program-record haul. It also means a lot of key pieces are gone.

The Hoosiers are not walking into 2026 thin, though. On defense, sack leaders Rolijah Hardy and Isaiah Jones are back. So are tackles Mario Landino and Tyrique Tucker, and cornerback Jamari Sharpe, who was the standout player in the national championship game.

Cignetti is also not worried about the outside noise around what Indiana has built.

"If you don't change with the rules, there's only one person to blame," he told On3 in the same interview.

He has heard every version of the "buts." But they were older. But they hit the portal right. But the schedule was soft. He has answers for all of them and is not interested in revisiting any of it.

Meanwhile, Cignetti has found Mendoza's successor.

Josh Hoover has already met his new best friends at Curt Cignetti's Indiana

With Mendoza gone, all eyes are on TCU Horned Frogs transfer Josh Hoover as the new starting quarterback. Cignetti has been deliberately measured in how he talks about him publicly.

But he did say one thing that made it very clear how Indiana plans to use him.

"When Josh got here, he met his two new best friends: great defense and a really good run game," Cignetti said in the On3 interview.

That is not a knock on Hoover. It is a description of the system. Mendoza won the Heisman last season and attempted more than 30 passes just twice in 16 games. Indiana is not going to ask Hoover to carry the offense alone.

Hoover had trouble avoiding turnovers in key situations, and those issues increased over time. During his junior season, he posted a career-high turnover rate of 3.1%. Still, Cignetti defended that TCU threw the ball a lot under offensive coordinator Kendal Briles.

Do you think Indiana can defend its national title without Mendoza in 2026? Let us know in the comments.

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Written by

Farheen Fathima

Edited by

Soheli Tarafdar