10/16/2025
College football’s newest powerhouse resides in a state known for basketball.
Now sitting No. 3 in the AP poll, Indiana has proven their big 2024 was no fluke and this year the Hoosiers can not only hang, but beat the sport’s elite teams.
It's no mystery how the Hoosiers wound up here.
Indiana has increased its spending in football every year since 2021 when it was just less than $24 million, to $61.6 million a year ago, according to the Knight-Newhouse database. The 2024 season was the first since 2005 that IU exceeded the conference’s median in total football spending.
The Hoosiers’ ramp-up in spending coincides with the university hiring Pam Whitten to be its president in 2021. Whitten came from Kennesaw State, but before that was at the University of Georgia, where she understood the top-down buy-in football requires for success.
The Hoosiers also have an NIL warchest that’s competitive with the rest of the conference. After last year’s College Football Playoff berth, the team was able to retain most of its core rather than losing it to the transfer portal and make some expensive additions, too. Quarterback Fernando Mendoza has emerged as a Heisman Trophy frontrunner and is being paid $2 million, according to CBS Sports.
Head coach Curt Cignetti regularly talks about how IU has one of the biggest alumni bases in the country, and his success has started to get the attention of some of the school’s richest. Billionaire Mark Cuban, who graduated from Indiana in 1981, has long been one of the school’s biggest academic donors, but never donated to the athletic department until December 2024, partially because of Cignetti, a fellow Pittsburgh native.
Read more about how Indiana quietly became one of college football's biggest spenders in the comments ⬇️
