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

Cinderella stories aren't supposed to happen in college football.

Even in college hoops, where a single-elimination tournament makes Cinderella runs more common, a true Cinderella national champion is extraordinarily rare.

The transfer portal and expanded playoff have arguably opened a wider path for more college football programs to compete nationally, but what Indiana has accomplished in just two years under Curt Cignetti has surpassed what most believed possible in a sport that lacked much parity at its highest levels in the decades leading up to the 2025 season.

From three winning seasons in 29 years to the doorstep of a 16-0 national championship, there hasn’t been a story like Indiana’s in recent memory — and the odds prove it, 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 champions.

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Indiana preseason odds

Indiana entered the season with +10000 odds to win a national championship, according to Sports-Reference. That would make the Hoosiers college football's most unlikely national champion since data became available in 2002.

At +10000, Indiana had more distant odds than 22 teams, including 4-8 Florida, 4-8 South Carolina and 5-7 Auburn. 

Remarkably, preseason odds only tell part of the story of how unlikely an Indiana national championship would be. No, the Hoosiers were not expected to be a national title contender entering 2025, but they were coming off a College Football Playoff appearance. If you go back two years, rather than one, the idea of Indiana even competing for a national championship seemed virtually impossible in a sport traditionally dominated by a few prominent programs.

Entering 2024, Indiana's preseason title odds were +100000, tied for the lowest of any FBS team. Teams with shorter odds included Coastal Carolina, Oregon State and Liberty. Indiana didn't win a national championship, but it did reach the 12-team playoff against all odds.

Two years later, the Hoosiers are on the verge of completing a rise once thought to be unthinkable in college football. 

MORE: Has Indiana ever won a national championship in football?

Indiana football schedule 2025

While Indiana is the underdog story of all underdog stories when you look at the bigger picture, it actually didn't take too long for oddsmakers to realize the Hoosiers were one of the nation's top teams this season.

Indiana has been favored in 14 of its 16 games, with the only exceptions being a road matchup with Oregon in October and the Big Ten championship against Ohio State. Here's a look at the odds and results for each game. 

Historical odds courtesy of Yahoo Sports through BetMGM.

Not only was Indiana favored in 14 of 16 games, but the Hoosiers were favored by double-digits in nine of their 12 regular season contests. 

Indiana was a 7-point underdog on the road against Oregon in October, but a gritty 10-point win over the Ducks adjusted the way many started to think about the Hoosiers. They wouldn't be underdogs again until the Big Ten title game, when they narrowly defeated Ohio State. 

Cignetti's squad was a modest favorite against Alabama in the Rose Bowl and only a narrow favorite in a rematch with Oregon in the Peach Bowl, but Indiana won by a combined 69 points, setting the stage for the Hoosiers to go into the national championship as clear but not necessarily overwhelming favorites.

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Most unlikely national champion in football?

Here's a complete look at the preseason national title odds for each champion since 2002: 

College football is going to have its most unlikely national champion since at least 2019, according to preseason odds, because Miami entered the season at +3000 to win a title. That snaps a streak of five consecutive years in which a team with preseason odds shorter than +1000 lifted the trophy at the end of the playoff.

Indiana, however, would be in an entirely different category than every champion from the last 23 years—and likely longer. At +10,000, Indiana would easily surpass 2010 Auburn as the most unlikely national champion since odds data started being recorded, though that doesn't even account for how unlikely the Hoosiers' rise from 2023 to 2024 was.

2010 Auburn Tigers

Unless or until Indiana wins it all, 2010 Auburn stands as the most unlikely national champion in recent memory by preseason odds.

The Tigers were coming off a fine 8-5 season under first-year coach Gene Chizik, but there were a great deal of unknowns entering the 2010 season. The biggest was QB Cam Newton, who started out at Florida behind Tim Tebow but transferred down to the junior college level after off-field issues in Gainesville. Newton first had to win the starting job in the summer, and he went into the season with only 12 passes under his belt at the FBS level. 

Auburn also didn't have much projected NFL talent. Newton turned into the No. 1 overall pick with his Heisman-winning season, but only three other players were selected in the 2011 NFL Draft: one first-round pick and two seventh-rounders. That wasn't simply because Auburn's top players were underclassmen. A year later, only one Auburn player was drafted. 

For one year, though, it all worked. Newton lit up college football and spearheaded a dominant rushing attack alongside RB Michael Dyer in OC Gus Malzahn's offense, and the defense handled business in a 22-19 BCS Championship win over Oregon. 

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