It took me a hot second here during the otherwise-thrilling 2025-26 College Football Playoff to fully notice, but once I recognized what had happened there was simply no un-seeing it.
Here I was, observing and critiquing these Playoff games while simultaneously pining for the good ol’ days of (checks notes…) 5 years ago when it smacked me square in the face…
Curt Cignetti accomplished the impossible.
Cignetti somehow built a fully functional, seemingly-impossible-to-beat Nick Saban Death Star right under all our noses at the most unlikely of possible places.
Indiana.
There it was, hitting me like a ton of bricks while watching Cignetti’s Hoosiers absolutely embarrass Oregon in the Peach Bowl. Cignetti, not even the slightest glimmer of a smile for a full 60 minutes, all dour and grouchy while lording over yet another football performance so dominant that it harkened back to the same Alabama teams Saban constructed in Tuscaloosa.
Indiana is Alabama 2.0, y’all. Cignetti is Saban evolved, a younger and somehow even more gruff version of the maestro himself. And the stormtrooper-like Hoosiers are the Crimson Tide Redux, just 60 minutes removed from taking over the entire galaxy for their crimson-clad Empirical lord.
Tell me you don’t see it. Tell me you don’t see the similarities between what Saban wrought upon the Southeastern Conference and what Cignetti is currently delivering to the Big Ten. Tell me you don’t see the similarities between the whole-worth-way-more-than-sum-of-parts Alabama programs in 2009, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2017 and 2010 and what Cignetti has assembled in Bloomington.
Because I see it, clear as day. The Indiana Empire’s Death Star is fully functioning, people, and it is loading up for a trip to South Florida this very instant. It isn’t just coincidence that Monday’s setting – Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens – is the same stadium that saw Saban’s 2020 Crimson Tide obliterate Ohio State 52-24 to cap a perfect 13-0 season and the program’s 18th national title.
That was Peak Saban, the evil Darth Vader of college football himself barely even letting COVID-19 slow him down in a march toward perfection.
The 2025 Indiana season has seen many similarities. For one, what was Mac Jones – a functional and highly-cerebral quarterback for Alabama in 2020 – has been reborn at Indiana in Fernando Mendoza.
Jones was a machine all season for the Tide, and deconstructed Ohio State to the tune of 464 passing yards and 5 touchdown passes to cruise to the national title. That came a week after a 4-touchdown, 5-incompletion masterclass against Notre Dame in the CFP semifinal. In 2020, Jones finished with 4,500 passing yards, 41 touchdown passes, completed 77.4% of his pass attempts and threw just 4 interceptions.
What does Mendoza do best, you ask? Simply put, he doesn’t make mistakes… just like Jones. Mendoza throwing fewer incompletions than touchdown passes against both Alabama in the Rose Bowl (3 TD passes to 2 incompletions) and Oregon in the Peach Bowl (5 TD passes to 3 incompletions) is perhaps one of the most absurd stats I’ve ever seen – and the Heisman winner somehow did it twice in the Playoff against 2 high-caliber opponents.
Mendoza, by the way, will end up way short of Jones’ passing yards total (Mendoza enters the CFP title game with 3,349 passing yards) and has already uncorked 6 interceptions. But his 73% completion rate is still third-best in the country and could vault above Miami’s Carson Beck for second if he turns in another mistake-free effort Monday night.
While Cignetti’s charm-free on-field persona makes for quality television – in both blowouts and the occasional close game alike – and draws plenty of Saban comparisons, you could argue that Cignetti’s Death Star is even more impressive than Saban’s given that the construction materials used aren’t the pick of the litter.
This is Indiana we are talking about, which until earlier this season was still the losingest program in college football history (both in overall losses and win/loss rate) and has never been a recruiting destination for anyone who plays outside with an prolate spheroid instead of bouncing a round ball on the hardwood indoors and aiming it for the hole in a peach basket.
Using another analogy, Cignetti has not only put together all the ingredients necessary to open a Michelin star-rated restaurant but he is cooking with stuff he found rummaging through the pantry late on a weeknight. There aren’t any 5-star recruits at Indiana, and Mendoza gleefully calls himself and his Hoosiers teammates “misfits” to describe their lack of hype before boarding Cignetti’s destructive machine.
This Indiana team seems not only bent on destroying whatever team finds the misfortune of being placed in its path, but the Hoosiers seem to find an extra gear when the lights get brighter and the naysayers of the world start naysaying about the fairy-tale ride finally grinding to a halt.
That was supposed to happen against Ohio State in the Big Ten title game. Then against Alabama in the storied Grandaddy Of Them All in Pasadena. Then again against the high-powered Ducks in Atlanta.
But instead of folding, Cignetti and Indiana simply upshifted and set all phasers to “dominate.” Alabama still can’t quite figure out what hit it at the Rose Bowl – and is only now finding solace from its decimation via “see, it wasn’t just us!” commiseration with Oregon after the Ducks got pasted in the ATL.
While no team is clearly flawless (just as Luke Skywalker taught us by implausibly finding the exhaust vent in Star Wars and Han Solo then discovered in The Empire Strikes Back), don’t bet on Miami to make it happen Monday night. This is a Hurricanes team, after all, that lost to Louisville and SMU in the regular season and has yet to see coach Mario Cristobal’s game management bungle away a game in a pressure situation this season.
So gird yourselves, Hurricanes fans. Steel yourselves, college football cognoscenti. This Indiana football machine is constructed on the same specs as the Alabama one from (checks notes…) 5 years ago and is manned by a former Saban assistant with all the necessary talent and grim gruffness as his mentor.
Beware, everyone. The Hoosiers Death Star is locked, loaded and fully fueled for one final ride in 2025. And there really isn’t anything you can do about it.
Indiana’s Death Star reminds us of a certain Nick Saban winning machine Saturday Down South.
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