MAHONEY’S MOMENTS

January 2026: From the Doghouse to the Penthouse

There is nothing more irritating to some and illuminating to others than a great example. The case in point that appears to defy all odds and easy explanation. Think Roger Bannister’s first four-minute mile or Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon. My vote for illuminator example of the year, perhaps decade, and maybe the past century in sports goes to the Indiana University football Hoo-Hoo-Hoosiers! They have gone from one of the losingest college football programs in America until two years ago to being on the brink of the national championship in the sport if they win next Monday night.

I suspect people will be writing, talking, and using Indiana football as the metaphor for dramatic, successful change forever. Pundits, including me, will spin the turnaround in myriad ways to illustrate teaching points for reaching excellence quickly. This hasn’t been a slow turnaround. The truth is they went from the doghouse to the penthouse in two years. In 2024, the team went 11-2 and lost in the college playoffs and this year they are 15-0 and playing in the championship game next Monday night. What changed?

Let’s start with the obvious and perhaps most important change. Lesson #1. The leader. Of course, that matters or you wouldn’t have organizations constantly hiring and firing the top person to get better results. In this case the new leader is veteran Coach Curt Cignetti who was hired two years ago and famously said after many reporters questioned his hiring, “It’s pretty simple. I win. Google me.” It was true because while he coached football at smaller less well-known schools, he did win. That brings me to my lesson #2.

Look at people who are successful in smaller settings, not just those on the big stage for important leadership hires. We tend to overlook experienced and successful leaders from small organizations because we believe they would not fare well in much larger organizations. A small company CEO couldn’t lead a much larger one. A small school district superintendent couldn’t lead a larger one. Or only five-star athletes can compete at a high level. Nonsense. Countless examples suggest the folly of this approach. If you watched Ole Miss quarterback Chambliss in the playoffs, you know what I mean. He played a lower division in college football a year ago. Often, some leaders just need an opportunity and an employer that believes success, integrity, and learning travel well. Like Cignetti. Heisman winner Mendoza fits that description too. Joe Burrow went to a small rural high school. That brings me to Lesson #3.

Trust the process. Coach Cignetti had decades of successful experience working with athletes to improve, creating winning locker room chemistry, and finding good matches to his successful approaches. He took all that experience to another stage and guess what? It worked there! He recruited excellent athletes who believed in him, hired assistant coaches that matched his approaches, and added to his Google legend of winning. He knows how to do this. Credit Indiana’s AD on the hiring coup of the ages. Cignetti also successfully navigated the rapidly changing NIL environment where we now pay kids large sums of money to play college football. And as an added bonus…Coach appears to be loyal and not ready to jump ships to the next highest bidder for his services.

I don’t know if Indiana will win the national championship. The lessons won’t change either way. Although there might be some irony in the fact that a kid (Indiana’s Mendoza) who lived in Miami and wasn’t recruited by them is the quarterback who just may beat them. Go Hoosiers!