Armed with Mark Cuban donations and Curt Cignetti's brash approach, Indiana sets up for sustained success

A special season for Indiana ended on a sour note as it lost to Notre Dame 27-17 in the College Football Playoff first round to finish 11-2. Amid a hot start to the follow-up in the 2025 season, the No. 7 Hoosiers now travel to No. 3 Oregon to face the Ducks on Saturday (3:30 p.m. ET on CBS and streaming on Paramount+ Premium) and again put the notion of whether they can contend on the line.

Oregon under Phil Knight -- affectionately called Uncle Phil -- became the poster child for how to fund a football program into the national spotlight incrementally year over year. The Ducks are not a blue blood, they're a new blood, and they're the best bet to be the next first-time college football national champion. But as college football enters the revenue-sharing era, Indiana is an example of the next frontier -- schools feeling the existential threat of where college sports is going and knowing that relevancy in football is the most important thing. 

Mark Cuban enters the financial chat

Indiana football isn't one billionaire's plaything; it's an example of how the rev share era unlocks different ways for a properly-aligned and properly-coached institution, no matter their history, to become a reliable playoff contender. 

However, having a billionaire around sure helps, and Indiana does in 1981 graduate Mark Cuban. Cuban has donated to his alma mater before, whether it's the $5 million gift to create a sports media and technology center or $6 million to IU's club rugby team. 

But he had never donated directly to IU athletics until that Friday night in South Bend last December. 

"I gave some to sports this year for the first time ever," Cuban told CBS Sports. "Typically, I was the exact opposite. I'm not a fan of anything that I believe raises tuition in the least bit. But after getting to talk to Cig and seeing what was going on, they kinda talked me into it. 

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Cuban declined to say how much he donated, but did say it was "a big number," and he didn't specify where the donation should go within the athletic department. Cuban has a close relationship with athletic director Scott Dolson, as he did Dolson's predecessor Fred Glass, but it was the kinship with Cignetti that pushed him to give. They originally met at a fundraiser for the singer John Mellencamp. There, they figured out both were born in the same Pittsburgh area hospital and are only three years apart in age. 

"The fact that Cig has said I win everywhere I go, I didn't believe him, but he showed it against all odds, he proved that he was a true Yinzer," Cuban said. "He's a true blue collar guy who worked his way up. He worked for some great coaches, but he went through the grind. It was one step and then he won. Then another step up he won. Another step up he won. That's hardly heard of anywhere in college sports -- football or basketball, volleyball, baseball, whatever. He had a history of winning. And, you know, he had a bunch of shit to him. He's a Pittsburgh guy, and that's what I really like. Maybe if he wasn't a Pittsburgh guy, I might not have done it. But, you know, we had that connection." 

All roads lead back to Curt Cignetti hire

Getting Cignetti in as coach was the culmination of a five-day sprint from the time Tom Allen was let go to Cignetti touching down in Bloomington. According to Dolson, an IU athletics staff member put together a profile of what to look for in a hire by using some of the things that were successful at schools like North Carolina, Duke and Big Ten rivals. They wanted an offensive-oriented QB developer, but more specifically they wanted someone who had been a recruiting coordinator despite the fact that general managers have never been more empowered across the country, Cignetti still greenlights every offer and evaluates every player on the roster. 

The day Dolson and IU moved on from Allen, he had calls set up the rest of the day with  a dozen prospective candidates. But only after Cignetti's initial call did Dolson call school president Pam Whitten to say "this guy's different." Whitten, a former Provost at Georgia, was instrumental in unlocking funds to make sure football had what it needed to be successful under Cignetti. Dolson and a small group had interviews with some candidates Tuesday and Wednesday, and by Wednesday night, he was offering Cignetti the job. By Friday morning, he was in Bloomington and at work building a staff and meeting fans. 

Cignetti told Dolson if he had average resources he could turn IU into a winner, a tall task for a program that had only had fleeting success and one top 25 finish since 1988. Indiana still has the most losses of any FBS program (although Northwestern is likely to pass them for the ignominious honor by season's end). But Cignetti paid dividends immediately, and after an 11-2 year, the challenge for any football program like Indiana is to make sure that one year of success isn't just a blip. They didn't waste any time. 

"From the time we walked off the field in South Bend -- Cig and I talked about it on the way to the press conference -- it's, hey, we got to do better. It's really not thinking that you got it figured out, not thinking, wow, we've made it nothing close to that," Dolson said. "Hey, we've shown that we can do some really good things. Now, let's double down, and let's really roll up our sleeves and get to work. And, honestly, whether it's the department, it's our ticket operation, it's our game experience, it's adding a mascot. It's making certain that we're super strategic in everything we do, and you know, that's the way Cig is."

Indiana needed to put new turf in Memorial Stadium, it finished a weight room project to give football its own weight room, added new suites and revamped the football offices. The program also retained both coordinators and strength coach from last year's team. It was able to retain some of the team's best players from last season, including receivers Elijah Sarratt and Omar Cooper as well as All-Big Ten defenders at each level in Mikail Kamara, Aiden Fisher and D'Angelo Ponds, each of whom came over with Cignetti from James Madison. They also added key pieces to this year's team form the transfer portal, including running back Roman Hemby, center Pat Coogan, tackle Kahlil Benson and defensive tackle Hosea Wheeler. But the crown jewel is quarterback Fernando Mendoza, at a cost north of $2 million according to sources. 

Citing data from the Knight-Newhouse database, 2024 was the first season in at least two decades that IU exceeded the Big Ten's median in total football spending at $61.6 million, according to The Daily Hoosier. Having Cuban on board is one thing, but the face of college athletic fundraising is changing rapidly and everyone is battling the common notion of donor fatigue. NIL and rev share mean athletic departments need more money ... and quickly. Every school that wants to truly compete has a $20.5 line item on their budget when the House v. NCAA court case was settled over the summer. Donors are being asked for more things, more often. That's before you get to the university side, as those same donors are often being leaned on as state funding sources dry up around the country. As generations shift, younger donors want different things from their investments. Boosters who grew up with Bob Knight may be fine to just give to athletics habitually. Young donors want something more tangible. 

"The younger donors are less likely to cut a check unless they're more intimately involved," Tyler Harris, executive director of the Hoosiers Connect NIL collective said. "If you think about the older donor base, you know, they've had this type of experience over all the years. And the younger donor base is the group that really jumped in feet first with NIL because they like that concept. And, so, we've really excelled with the younger donor base and in terms of experiences, bringing athletes around them. So there's something real to their contributions. The older donors, they've had those experiences all throughout their life, and they'll continue to get them, but they're really supporting because they have their whole life and they love IU, you know, the experiences allows us to get the new, younger generation." 

Dolson says Cignetti's demeanor is calculated with the added benefit of drawing in young people especially. Cignetti debuted in Assembly Hall that Friday night last December after being introduced, and Dolson was awed by how quickly he connected with the student body. He delivered a message that would set the tone for his tenure. 

"Purdue sucks," he said after introducing himself to over 17,000 in crimson and cream. "But so does Michigan and Ohio State." 

He cut pro wrestling promos all summer and throughout the 2024 season "I win, Google me;" "We don't just beat top 25 teams, we beat the shit out of them;" or after beating that Michigan team he said months before sucked, "What are we, 10-0? -- not bad."

"He's 64, but it's super interesting because he really has a feel for the younger generation," Dolson said. "I mean, he understands attention spans. In the social media era, attention spans are short. You know, if you notice, he really communicates quickly, effectively." 

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Indiana football set up for sustained success

It was all part of a plan to wake up a football fanbase that wasn't dead, just merely asleep. Those in his inner circle say Cignetti isn't actual a trash talker by nature, but rather it's kayfabe to get the Hoosier faithful to buy in. And for the most part he has toned things down this season, besides some jabs at the SEC's scheduling practices. Cignetti isn't taking any one-on-one interviews ahead of this game, and as opposed to former Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy's approach to the Ducks, Cignetti buttered up Oregon coach Dan Lanning by calling him a "phenom" in the coaching industry and complimenting the program's war chest of funds, which point back to Knight back in the mid 1990s asking then coach Mike Belotti what he needed in order to be successful. It was Cuban who had a similar moment in South Bend.  

"I remember saying to Scott, you know, we're all disappointed that we lost, particularly to the dome heads -- I hate Notre Dame -- but what I remember saying to Scott is, 'Scott, this is painful, but isn't it nice to not have to be thinking about whether or not you have to fire your coach for the first time in how many years?'" Cuban said. 

This Indiana team doesn't need Cignetti's tough talk with what it brought back from last season and added fueled by the disappointment of their CFP debut. The Hoosiers feel they're primed to remain among college football's contenders in the sport's new era.