College football is a business, it always has been and always will be. Both off the books, as in SMU’s “A Payroll to Meet,” and on the books for athletic department budgets across the country. FBS College football is a billion dollar business filled with parking passes, beer vendors, advertising campaigns, NIL donations, and merchandising as well as TV deals with the major networks.
Miami Hurricanes
The basis of the Summer Scheming ‘25 series was a business approach to winning college football games. Throughout the summer
I looked at Miami’s schedule and analyzed the: problem, solution, UVP, key metric and competitive advantage of each team- including the Miami Hurricanes.
I also examined the high achievers and low achievers in the ACC and what teams could do to copy or avoid them.
Per Bill Connelly and his early preseason SP+ data, the high achievers are Clemson (11th), Miami (14th) and SMU (18th). The low achievers are Stanford (88th), Wake Forest (83rd), and Virginia (82nd).
From Bill C’s May 22nd update in the spring, Miami was the 12th ranked team overall, 1st offense, 44th defense and 19th kicking game. As of January 10th, 2026, SP+ has Miami at 9th overall, 20th on offense, 6th on defense and 31st in kicking.
For the self-scout of the Hurricanes, this is what I came up with over the summer:
Miami’s problem from ‘24 was the defense, no kidding… Corey Hetherman, the return of Mesidor and Bain, and the influx of DB talent has ‘fixed’ the ‘Canes defense- at least for a season. And Hetherman and the DB’s were the expected solution to the defensive issues.
Miami’s UVP is location. Being located in South Florida attracts transfer portal prospects, NIL money and enough prospects from Central Florida to the Keys to influx Miami with prospects like Bryce Fitzgerald and Malachi Toney.
The ‘Canes Key Metric that would let us know they found success was a huge miss on my part. I had the ‘Canes losing to unranked teams keeping Miami out of the postseason, little did I know! Miami dropped games to SMU and Louisville and made the CFB Playoff without playing in the ACC Championship Game at all.
Lastly, UM’s competitive advantage would be the offensive line under Cristobal and Alex Mirabal. The run game has been stuffed at times but Carson Beck has had time to throw and Francis Mauigoa will be a first round pick in the 2026 NFL Draft.
The Canyonero Keys to Victory for the ‘Canes in the preseason was, “Cristobal overcoming Cristobal.” He failed at that task against SMU and Louisville but lived up to it with dominant performances over Pitt, Texas A&M, Ohio State and Ole Miss to get to the National Championship.
Indiana Hoosiers
Hindsight re Indiana’s two season run, Curt Cignetti’s 15-0 start to the 2026 campaign, and the Fernando Mendoza Heisman Trophy win is easy to have now that they’re double-digit favorites in the natty.
Back in May, Bill C’s SP+ had Indiana as the 23rd best team in FBS. The Hoosiers offense was 30th, defense 25th and kicking game 29th. IU is now 1st overall, 2nd on offense, 2nd on defense, and 29th in kicking. IU has done what Cignetti has always done which is overcome his expectations.
Indiana finished the ‘24 season 11-2 with losses only to Ohio State and Notre Dame, the winner and loser of the National Championship Game a year ago, respectively. Indiana used a handful of transfers on offense: Pat Coogan, Roman Hemby, and Mendoza to become the nation’s highest scoring offense this season as well as returning talents in Elijah Surratt, Charlie Becker, and Kaelon Black. The defense overachieved after adding DB’s Devan Boykin and Louis Moore.
IU’s problem from a year ago would have been having the talent to beat the best of the best. Now IU is the team to beat after adding those key pieces in the transfer portal and putting them in the position to win. Clearly Cignetti’s solution was to keep his staff in tact and add a few high character pieces to his depth chart.
The key metric for IU would’ve been beating the ranked teams, the opposite of the issues Miami was having and still is which is losing to the unranked teams on the schedule. This season IU did that by beating Illinois, Alabama, OSU and Oregon twice.
Cignetti’s UVP tagline is “Google Me!” and maybe we all should’ve prior to the ‘24 season. The Hoosiers competitive advantage seems to be a partnership with Mark Cuban and elite scouting. You can find the “best” players for your program and sign them via NIL thanks to Cuban’s deep pockets.
Championship Comparisons
Indiana and Miami have added so many transfers this season that I wasn’t sure that formula could or would work. IU added ~13 new players via the portal to the two-deep while Miami added ~14 plus two new kickers that had to battle it out in camp.
I’m not transfer portal averse, I just didn’t think you could add this many transfers and keep the culture stable through hard times. IU hasn’t really had any hard times as they’re undefeated. Miami has dropped two unexpected games but flipped the switch and are clearly white hot heading into Monday’s game.
Both coaches have employed Corey Hetherman as DC. Hetherman spent three years as the defensive play caller on Cignetti’s staff at JMU in their FBS days and clearly is the DC for Cristobal now. Both coaches want to play simple, hard nosed football with limited nonsense.
The biggest difference between the two is that Cignetti is calm and Cristobal is chaotic on the sidelines. This has hurt Cristobal in the past as his teams would fold at the end of games as he melted down managing timeouts and the clock, and Cignetti just keeps winning while looking miserable doing it.
Both head coaches have worked for Nick Saban but did not overlap on the Alabama coaching staffs. Cristobal coached OL under Saban from 2013-2016 and Cignetti coached WR there from 2007-2010. Both served as recruiting coordinators for Saban during their run in Tuscaloosa. Both also won a title there: Cignetti won a ring with the Crimson Tide in 2009, Cristobal in 2015.
C.R.E.A.M.
Both programs have administrations that are aligned in what matters in the world of college athletics. Big money boosters, NIL, and a total alignment on football being the main priority for a successful athletic department. That small handful of differences between the coaches, penalties and sideline temperament, will go down to prove who can win the natty on Monday night.
