BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – This football season in Indiana is still a barely-believable phenomenon.

The Hoosiers are 10-0 for the first time ever. Indiana is the talk of the college football world. Indiana will play its biggest game of the season, and perhaps ever, when the fifth-ranked Hoosiers travel to Ohio Stadium on Nov. 23 to take on No. 2 Ohio State.

The issues? Oh, just a spot in the Big Ten championship game, a possible conference championship and a chance for the Hoosiers to be the No. 1 team and top seed in the College Football Playoff if Indiana beats the ‘No. 1 Oregon in Big Ten title game. .

It is difficult to comprehend how quickly success came and how complete it was. The applause will go to coach Curt Cignetti and rightly so. He turned a losing program into a winning program in whiplash fashion.

As great as Cignetti was at running the football program, he needed a tool to do it.

Indiana fans should get on their knees and thank the transfer portal. Yes, the much-maligned portal. Cignetti’s efforts to turn things around for the Hoosiers would not have been possible without it.

Appreciation of the portal will not be shared by everyone, but it should be. For those complaining about the transfer portal, how dare these players move! – learn to love it. At the very least, give him a begrudging nod of approval.

How important has this been for Indiana football? A quick check of the statistics is all you need to know to understand the impact of the portal.

Leading passer? Kurtis Rourke. Added Ohio portal.

A leading runner? Judge Ellison. Added Wake Forest portal. Second and third runners in the lead? Ty Son Lawton and Kaelon Black, both added to James Madison’s portal.

Indiana’s top four receivers are all portal additions: Elijah Sarratt (JMU), Myles Price (Texas Tech), Ke’Shawn Williams (Wake Forest) and Miles Cross (Ohio). The leader of the close group? Zach Horton, a portal addition from JMU.

Best tackler? Aiden Fisher of JMU. Bags? Mikail Kamara of JMU.

Congratulations to Amare Ferrell! The Hoosiers’ interceptions leader is the only leader in a major statistical category who isn’t a transfer.

You understand. The influx of talent coming through the portal is what has made Indiana’s rapid transformation possible.

It’s not just football. Indiana’s three most lucrative sports – football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball – are all significantly influenced by the portal.

The face of the women’s basketball program – Sydney Parrish – came to Indiana through the portal from Oregon. The same goes for current and recently deceased stars Sara Scalia, Shay Ciezki and Karoline Striplin.

The portal has such an influence on men’s basketball that it has become the primary means of building rosters. Three of Indiana’s current starters – Myles Rice, Kanaan Carlyle and Oumar Ballo – are additions to the portal. Just like Kel’El Ware last season – a first-round NBA draft pick.

Indiana basketball’s reliance on the portal irritates some fans who prefer to build via first-year additions, but no one objects when Indiana dips into its war chest to apply the other seismic shift that happened to college athletics – name, image and likeness – to get these portals. additions through the door.

This created what I call the Woodson effect. Coach Mike Woodson’s approval ratings soared in April and May when fans were excited about their shiny new toys.

However, a significant number of fans still complain about the portal. That the portal must be “controlled”. That children are not the same and do not have the same loyalty, etc. That the notion of the student-athlete is ruined. It’s chaos!

I understand. Change is feared. Several generations of fans have grown up and aged without any major changes to the way college athletics operates. Some fans don’t want college players to become quasi-pro. This undermines the reason they are fans of the university in the first place.

The dizzying portal season — in which the total number of players expressing a desire to advance reaches four-digit size in basketball — is a buzz kill for many. Where is the loyalty? Where is the commitment? Where is the courage to wait for your turn to play?

Again, I understand it, but I also have a jaundiced view of what it used to be like. Give players from previous eras the ability to move and they would, just like athletes today. Their “loyalty” was based on the harsh reality of having no real choice. Not without having to be absent for a year, a rule which, in hindsight, seems ridiculously draconian.

Additionally, coaches and institutions dominated their student-athletes with a paternalistic sense of ownership. They decided where you could be transferred. They decided whether you were allowed to keep your scholarship. It was a bad system for players that needed reforming a long time ago, but because it stuck around for so long, people got used to it and considered it the norm.

If it helps, think of the portal as just an annual market correction. Good players have better opportunities. Players who fail to break through to the highest level can regain their level and playing time at a more appropriate level.

Namely, former Hoosier basketball player Kaleb Banks is averaging 19.3 points and 10.3 rebounds for Tulane in three games against (bad) competition. Banks has never proven he can produce at that level here, but it’s good for him to have the opportunity to showcase his talents against an appropriate level of competition.

Whether you agree with the paragraphs above, do you prefer the alternative? Life without the portal? Given the possibility of going back in time, I think most Indiana fans would pass up this ride in the time machine.

I’m not sure any of Indiana’s major sports would be better off without it – football being the most obvious sport that has made galactic progress thanks to the portal’s existence.

So when you thank Cignetti for transforming football, think about the weapon he used to do it.

The transfer portal. You might not like it, but without it, those unforgettable memories you experienced on the field in 2024 would still be a daydream instead of a glorious reality.