Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti told the story this way: Several hours before his Monday morning press conference, he and the Hoosiers’ assistants held a meeting to begin game-week preparation for the College Football Playoff. They had spent the last seven days hustling and bustling, texting and treasure hunting in what amounted to a non-stop juggling act to satisfy the sport’s packed December calendar.

The Hoosiers not only continued to practice while awaiting the selection show that would ultimately reveal their fate – a first-round road game against seventh-seeded Notre Dame on Friday night – but also through the coaching staff’s simultaneous search of the transfer portal, recruiting visits and re-recruiting Indiana’s own players ensured the staff had at least half an eye on building its 2025 roster.

Cignetti wanted the seven-day juggling act to end on Sunday afternoon. Then he and his coaches could return to the normal weekly schedule that helped them to an 11-1 overall record and set new single-season program highs for conference wins (eight), offensive touchdowns (68) and consecutive victories (10), among others. Cignetti’s instructions were to leave all cell phones outside the meeting room as attention was focused squarely on Notre Dame. Every assistant but one had broken the rule. Recruiting never stops in modern college football.

“It’s been a challenge,” Cignetti said when asked about the balance between game planning and roster construction. “I got home a lot later than I usually do, and I was still there early – 4:30 a.m., 5 a.m. – because you deal with portal reviews, official visits and, to a certain extent, the Preparing the opponents busy. Then you.” “We also take care of your personnel and your player loyalty. I’m glad this week is behind us.”

Since the transfer portal opened Dec. 9, no team in this year’s expanded CFP is under more pressure to multitask than Indiana, a cellar-dweller in the Big Ten before Cignetti and his unwavering confidence arrived last winter. To reboot a program that had more losses than any other FBS school, Cignetti overhauled the roster with 51 additions before the 2024 season. That number included 27 transfers – 13 of which followed their head coach from James Madison, where Cignetti was from 2019 to 2024 2023 worked – and a high school recruiting class that was ranked 65th nationally in the 247Sports rankings, sandwiched between Boise State and Toledo, and 16th of 18 schools in the new-look Big Ten. The current roster includes 18 players using an extra year of eligibility left by the COVID-19 pandemic and 23 additional players listed as redshirt juniors or older. Year 1 to Year 2 sales under Cignetti could be seismic.

The fact that Indiana is different than every other program in this year’s CFP only increases the urgency for Cignetti and his staff to be successful on and off the field in December. Unlike Clemson, Texas, Tennessee, Ohio State, Oregon, Penn State and Notre Dame — all of which can be considered bluebloods or something like that — the Hoosiers aren’t rich in the history and tradition that attracts top-tier recruits every year. Unlike Boise State, which represents the Mountain West, the Hoosiers do not play in a league that is as easy to win on an annual basis, providing a cheaper path to the CFP. They also don’t have a bunch of oil tycoons flooding the athletic department with zero dollars like SMU, upstarts from the ACC. Even Arizona State, which may be the most comparable program to Indiana with several decades of sustained mediocrity, will be bringing back a top-tier quarterback in starter Sam Leavitt for 2025 – a luxury the Hoosiers won’t have if Kurtis Rourke’s eligibility expires after an incredible one Season.

“As far as the recruiting calendar, I don’t know that there are any easy answers,” Cignetti said. “If you look at it from a player’s perspective, everyone starts school in January, so students transferring schools need to have the opportunity to attend future schools in December. But still, seasons end in late November, championship games (are) There will always be bowl games in the first week of December – and now there are the expanded playoffs. I don’t think it’s an easy situation, and if it were, it would be remedied by now.”

(Related: 2024 College Football Playoff odds: Who will emerge from the first round?)

Among other things, Indiana tried to counteract roster turnover by signing Cignetti to a new, long-term contract in mid-November. At that point, he had led the Hoosiers to a 10-0 record less than a year after being hired. The new contract locks Cignetti through the 2032 season and will pay him an average of $8 million per year as well as an additional retention bonus of $1 million. And after Indiana finalized its agreement with Cignetti, the athletic department began working on two-year extensions for strength and conditioning coach Derek Owings and nine of the program’s on-field assistants. The only member of Cignetti’s staff who is not expected to return is assistant offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach Tino Sunseri, who accepted a promotion to full offensive coordinator at UCLA. But even Sunseri chose to stay with the Hoosiers in the postseason as a reflection of the strong culture Cignetti has built.

Committing to Cignetti and his assistants for the long haul gave Indiana the best chance to capitalize on its magical season during the player acquisition phase of modern college football’s roster-building process, dispelling the notion that their time with the Hoosiers was little more than a year lasted springboard for jobs with more traditional powers. Cignetti responded by adding six transfers in a five-day span from Dec. 13-17, giving Indiana the highest-rated portal class of any team in this year’s CFP and 26th overall, according to 247Sports as of Wednesday night. The next closest CFP entrant is Oregon, which added four transfers to a class ranked 33rd overall.

The Hoosiers’ new additions include three-star defensive tackle Hosea Wheeler from Western Kentucky, three-star cornerback Amariyun Knighten from Northern Illinois, three-star running back Lee Beebe Jr. from UAB -Texas State defensive tackle Dominique Ratcliff and a pair of specialists. All position players have logged at least 295 snaps this season, with three of them playing at least 400 snaps each.

“I got my mistakes out of myself at a young age and learned a lot about what I was looking for in terms of being a prototypical four-year school prospect and being successful,” Cignetti said during his second News Conference of the week on Wednesday afternoon. “What that looked like in high school, or now in the transfer portal, versus the guy who had potential but hadn’t quite put it together yet.”

“Production over potential – you’ve heard me say this a million times – it worked for us.”

It worked for someone like Rourke, who threw for 7,651 yards and 50 touchdowns in five seasons at Ohio before coming to Indiana and having the best year of his career: 202 of 287 passes (70.4%) for 2,827 yards, 27 touchdowns and just 27 touchdowns four interceptions.

It worked for someone like tailback Judge Ellison, who rushed for more than 1,700 yards over the last three seasons at Wake Forest before rushing for a career-high 811 yards and 10 touchdowns with the Hoosiers. Ellison’s backfield partner Ty Son Lawton, one of Baker’s dozen transfers from JMU, threw for a career-high 12 touchdowns and 634 rushing yards in his sixth season of college football.

It worked for almost everyone on the Hoosiers’ defense, a unit for which all five leading tacklers played somewhere other than Indiana last year.

“I came here for this,” Ellison said earlier this week. “I came here to win. I came here for the playoffs. I came here to do it with people I haven’t played much football with.”

And that’s exactly the formula Cignetti and his staff would like to bottle as they prepare for Notre Dame and look ahead to 2025.

Michael Cohen covers college football and basketball for FOX Sports, with a focus on the Big Ten. Follow him at @Michael_Cohen13.

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