Indiana preseason odds: Where Hoosiers would rank among most unlikely college football champions

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A Cinderella story shouldn’t happen in college football.

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Even in college basketball, where single-elimination tournaments have made Cinderella runs more common, true Cinderella national championships are extremely rare.

The transfer portal and expanded postseason have arguably opened up a broader path for more college football programs to compete nationally, but what Indiana has accomplished in just two years under Kurt Cignetti has surpassed what most thought was possible in a sport that lacked a lot of parity at the highest level in the decades leading up to the 2025 season.

From three championship seasons in 29 years to a 16-0 national championship, there hasn’t been a story quite like Indiana’s in recent memory — and the odds bear it out, even if they don’t tell the full story.

Here’s a look back at Indiana’s preseason odds and how they compare to recent college football national championships.

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More CFP Championship News:

Indiana Preseason Odds

Indiana enters the season as +10,000 odds to win the national championship, according to Sports-Reference. That would make the Hoosiers’ college football team the least likely to win a national championship since data became available in 2002.

At +10,000, Indiana is further out than 22 teams, including 4-8 Florida State, 4-8 South Carolina and 5-7 Auburn.

It’s worth noting that preseason odds only tell how likely Indiana’s national title is. No, the Hoosiers aren’t projected to be national title contenders entering 2025, but they just made the College Football Playoff. If you go back two years, not a year, the idea of ​​Indiana even competing for a national championship would have been nearly impossible in a sport traditionally dominated by a few notable programs.

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Entering 2024, Indiana’s preseason championship odds are +100,000, tied for the lowest among FBS teams. Teams with lower odds include Coastal Carolina, Oregon State and Liberty. Indiana didn’t win the national championship, but against all odds made the 12-team playoffs.

Two years later, the Hoosiers are on the verge of completing a rise once considered unthinkable in the college football world.

More:Has Indiana ever won a National Football Championship?

Indiana football schedule 2025

While Indiana is the underdog in every underdog story, when you look at the bigger picture, it actually didn’t take the oddsmakers long to realize that Indiana was one of the top teams in the country this season.

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Indiana has been favored in 14 of 16 games, with the only exceptions being a road game against Oregon State in October and the Big Ten title game against Ohio State. Here are the odds and results for each game.

Historical odds provided by Yahoo Sports via BetMGM.

Not only was Indiana favored in 14 of 16 games, but Indiana scored in double digits in nine of 12 regular season games.

Indiana trailed by seven points on the road against Oregon in October, but a 10-point win over the Ducks changed many people’s minds about the Hoosiers. They weren’t an underdog again until their narrow win over Ohio State in the Big Ten Championship Game.

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Signetti’s team was mediocre in the Rose Bowl against Alabama and only narrowly won a rematch against Oregon in the Peach Bowl, but Indiana won by a combined 69 points, setting the stage for Indiana to reach the national championship as the clear, but not necessarily overwhelming, favorite.

More:Why Curt Cignetti is SN Coach of the Year two years in a row

The most unlikely national football champion?

Here’s a complete overview of each championship’s preseason national championship odds since 2002:

According to preseason odds, college football will be the least likely team to win the national title since at least 2019, as Miami entered the season with +3000 odds to win the title. This ends a streak of five consecutive years in which a team with preseason odds below +1000 ended the playoffs with the trophy.

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However, Indiana is in a completely different category than all the champions of the past 23 years (and possibly more). At +10,000, Indiana would easily surpass 2010 Auburn as the least likely team to win the national championship since odds data began being recorded, though that doesn’t even take into account how likely Indiana is to rise from 2023 to 2024.

2010 Auburn Tigers

Unless Indiana wins it all, 2010 Auburn will be the least likely national championship team in recent years based on preseason odds.

The Tigers had a solid 8-5 record under first-year coach Gene Chizik, but entered the 2010 season with many unknowns. The biggest is quarterback Cam Newton, who started at Florida State under Tim Tebow but transferred to the junior college level after off-field issues in Gainesville. Newton first had to earn the starting job over the summer, having thrown just 12 passes at the FBS level entering the season.

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Auburn also doesn’t have much projected NFL talent. Newton was the No. 1 pick coming off a Heisman-winning season, but only three other players were selected in the 2011 NFL Draft: a first-round pick and two seventh-round picks. It’s not just that Auburn’s top players are all underclassmen. One year later, only one Auburn player was drafted.

Yet, for a year, it all worked. Newton lit up college football and spearheaded a dominant rushing attack alongside OC Gus Malzahn and RB Michael Dyer, and the defense got the job done in a 22-19 win over Oregon State in the BCS Championship Game.

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