Indiana’s rise is causing an identity crisis: Are we a football or basketball school?

Francisco Caceres is a senior at Indiana University, the president of a student athletic board that promotes and supports the school’s 24 varsity sports. He has friends who enrolled at the school just because of the men’s basketball program, which makes sense, given the five championship banners that hang in Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall.

But recently, when Caceres recruited students to join the athletic board, he heard something that surprised him: freshmen saying football had been a factor in their decisions to attend IU.

Said Caceres: “Had you told me someone was going to tell me that, like, a few years ago, I would’ve called you insane.”

For decades, IU — and most of the state in which it resides — has identified with basketball. Hall of Fame coach Bob Knight once put it this way: “Basketball may have been invented in Massachusetts, but it was made for Indiana.”

This may be true, but suddenly, IU students and alumni have been forced to consider a question that never seemed possible.

Are we a football school?

It’s not our home stadium, but it is our home crowd.

Hoosier Nation SHOWED OUT. pic.twitter.com/P5k06yROpt

— Indiana Hoosiers (@IUHoosiers) January 10, 2026

In two years, coach Curt Cignetti has taken a program known for failure to the doorstep of euphoria. Monday, Indiana faces Miami in the College Football Playoff national championship, a sentence that doesn’t seem real, no matter how many times it is written, read or screamed at such volume that it startles the neighbors.

The rise has been so unexpected that Angelo Pizzo, the screenwriter and film producer best known for creating “Hoosiers” and “Rudy,” has been contacted about turning it into a movie or documentary.

“Oh, my God,” Pizzo told The Athletic this week, referring to the requests he has received throughout IU’s march. “The number of texts and the calls and the emails, it was out of control.”

Pizzo understands the appeal. A 1971 IU graduate, he grew up in Bloomington, living within walking distance of the school’s athletic facilities. In 1987, he famously skipped the Academy Awards — “Hoosiers” had two nominations; one for best music, one for best supporting actor — so he could stay home and watch Indiana defeat Syracuse in the basketball national championship. (Regrets? “Are you kidding me?” Pizzo said. “Not in a heartbeat.”)

He says it’s too early to make a “Hoosiers” sequel — besides, he adds, the reality far outweighs anything moviemakers could produce — but those interested are not mistaken. While conceding his objectivity might be compromised, Pizzo says this has been the most amazing sports story he has seen.

So, does this make IU a football school? Pizzo isn’t sure.

“It’s such a challenging question,” he said.

Even though the men’s basketball program has underperformed for years — the Hoosiers have made two NCAA Tournaments over the last decade — the roundball roots in Indiana run deep. For many, watching Knight and the Hoosiers was a family event. Something that created a bond and set the foundation for lifelong fandom.

Until last year, football seldom inspired such loyalty. While one program fought for Big Ten titles, the other — aside from occasional mini-bursts — tried to stay out of the conference basement. Until Northwestern passed it in November, Indiana was the losingest program in Football Bowl Subdivision history. Those embarrassments are still fresh, which explains the reaction when folks are asked about IU’s recent football success. They struggle to find answers, baffled by a reversal that’s not supposed to happen this quickly, and circle back to the original questions.

What is going on?

How did this happen?

Lynn Houser, a retired sportswriter who worked at The Bloomington Herald-Times for 28 years, probably had the best explanation. “It’s like, all of a sudden,” he said, “the football gods have taken their heels off our necks and said, ‘OK, you guys have suffered enough.’”

Dr. Edward Hirt is a professor of psychological and brain sciences at IU who has studied fan behavior. During a 20-minute conversation this week, Hirt laughed often at the absurdity of it all, how IU fans took over downtown Atlanta at the Peach Bowl, walking around, fist-bumping those wearing the same school colors.

“For us to have season tickets for basketball, you had to sign up for football,” he said, knowing that likely will not be the case for much longer. “Isn’t that wild?”

Hirt finds it interesting that Cignetti’s teams win in similar ways as Knight’s once did — with a focus on fundamentals, making fewer mistakes and out-executing opponents, qualities he says appeal to sports fans in the Midwest. But he’s not ready to transfer the university’s sports identity just yet.

“We’re all fair-weathered fans,” Hirt said. “We’re much more interested in the teams that are doing well. Right now, it’s not that people here have really lost interest in basketball; it’s just how do you not shift your attention to this opportunity that’s like, ‘Wow’? It’s historic.”

Hoosier Nation showing out once again! 🤩

All tickets for Monday’s watch party have been claimed. https://t.co/stfmAShCDz

— Indiana Football (@IndianaFootball) January 14, 2026

High-profile sports success can impact university admission, and there’s reason to believe that’s happening in Bloomington. Mark Bode, executive director of media relations and public affairs, said IU’s admission rate has increased 60 percent since 2021. Though this stretch began before Cignetti’s arrival, Bode said the jump has kept pace with the recent football surge.

The campus buzz is easier to detect. This week, IU announced that Assembly Hall would host a watch party for Monday night’s championship. Tickets sold out within hours. After finishing class Thursday, freshman Laszlo Wolfe stood in a line “probably about a mile” long to pick up rally towels and posters for the football game.

“Professors are talking about it,” said Zachary Goldberg, IU’s student body president. “I had a question in a class on the first day (of the semester), asking about football and who had watched the Peach Bowl and what it had meant to us. I think that’s really telling. This is going beyond just the student life; it’s coming into the classroom. It’s pervasive. People see it everywhere.”

Quinn Richards, a sports columnist for the campus newspaper, the Indiana Daily Student, said if the basketball die-hards were given the choice between a basketball championship and a loss in Monday’s football title game, they’d probably take the basketball trophy. But not the students.

“My girlfriend knows nothing about football,” Richards said. “She didn’t know how many players were on the field. She is watching every single game on ESPN Plus. Locked in on the screen, sending me questions while I’m reporting, like, ‘What’s happening here?’ Everyone on this campus is tuning into IU football right now.”

Don Fischer, the radio voice for Indiana football and men’s basketball for more than five decades, saw this coming. Not years ago, but definitely once Cignetti arrived. He watched 10 of 13 of Cignetti’s first spring practices and was impressed with how Cignetti operated. He interviewed Cignetti and was sold on the coach’s philosophy and vision.

The breakthrough moment for Fischer came not when the Hoosiers beat Ohio State or Alabama or Oregon. Instead, it was last season’s win over UCLA in Southern California. On Sept. 14, in Cignetti’s third game in charge, the Hoosiers walloped the Bruins 42-13, beating a quality opponent on the road in ways Fischer had not often seen. From that moment, he understood he was watching something different.

So, one last time: Is this a football school?

“It’s a football school, and it’s become a football school overnight,” Fischer said. “And that’s hard to say. If something happens and we don’t win a national championship this year — and I totally believe we’re going to beat Miami — it’s still not going to change how I feel about it. Because I’m convinced (Cignetti) is the best thing that’s ever happened to Indiana football.”