The Big Picture: Inside College Football’s Most Unforgiving Month

The question presented to Oregon head coach Dan Lanning during a recent joint news conference with Indiana’s Curt Cignetti centered on lessons learned from facing the same opponent twice in one season — something the Ducks encountered with Washington in 2023 and Ohio State in 2024. That theme will resurface Friday night, when No. 5 Oregon meets No. 1 Indiana in the College Football Playoff semifinal at the Peach Bowl, a rematch of an Oct. 11 matchup won by the Hoosiers.

Rather than building his answer around those recent experiences, Lanning pointed to his shared background with Cignetti as former Alabama assistants under legendary head coach Nick Saban, whose dynastic run with the Crimson Tide included numerous rematches in SEC title games, BCS national championship games and early iterations of the College Football Playoff. Both of them were taught by the best.

"Stick to your process," Lanning said Saturday during the joint Zoom press conference. "I think Coach Cignetti would share the same sentiment of our team with Coach Saban. One thing you learned about is process. And it's all about process. You don't go into a game when you're sitting in the position that Indiana is sitting in or that we're sitting in and say, ‘OK, I'm going to change a lot of the things that we do.’ You gotta buy into what you've done the whole year to get you where you're at and really double down. So more than anything, double down on our process."

While practice times, meeting structures and film sessions will remain unchanged between now and Friday night — the kind of football-specific minutiae Lanning was referencing — an avalanche of activity in the transfer portal (open Jan. 2–16) has made it impossible for players and coaches still standing in this year’s playoff to maintain any sense of normalcy.

An NCAA decision to eliminate the spring portal window means that 2026 rosters must be shaped immediately, even though the current season won’t conclude for another two weeks. And that makes doubling down on process, as Lanning and Cignetti both vowed to do, highly impractical in a macro sense, because nothing about this stretch on the calendar is comparable to what's unfolded before. Everyone is adapting in real time.

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So what does this mess really look like? For Cignetti, whose Indiana team pounded No. 9 Alabama, 38-3, in the Rose Bowl quarterfinal, it began with an admission during Saturday's news conference that he couldn’t adequately answer a question regarding potential changes to Oregon’s defensive coverages since the teams met two months ago. The Hoosiers were already in the process of hosting 13 potential transfers for official visits, Cignetti said, which siphoned off four hours typically reserved for game prep. Instead, Cignetti planned to make up for lost time with extra film study later that evening.

To even reach that point and get the Hoosiers’ top targets on campus, Cignetti had to log plenty of extra work after Indiana returned from the Rose Bowl at approximately 3:30 a.m. ET on Jan. 2, the day before his media session with Lanning. Cignetti gave his players and staff some time off to recover from a cross-country flight but spent nine hours on his own preparing for the transfers to arrive. Unlike most programs in modern college football, Indiana doesn’t employ a specific person to oversee roster management and player acquisition. Instead, Cignetti is both the head coach and the de facto general manager.

"It puts a little more stress on the coaching staff," Cignetti said. "Right now, this time of year, if you're still playing — and there's only four of us really playing in the playoffs; there might be a couple other bowl games remaining — I guess the teams that aren't playing maybe have a little bit more of an advantage right now from a recruiting standpoint. But you gotta make time for it. You gotta get it done, do the best you can. But the focus primarily has to be on preparation for this game."

And yet, despite all that, Indiana is enjoying a stronger start to this year’s transfer portal window than any other semifinalist, which is a testament to how organized and effective Cignetti’s regime really is. As of Wednesday afternoon, the Hoosiers had already secured commitments from 10 new players, including a handful of high-level prospects led by former TCU quarterback Josh Hoover (No. 40 transfer, No. 10 QB); former Michigan State wide receiver Nick Marsh (No. 28 transfer, No. 7 WR) and former Kansas State edge rusher Tobi Osunsanmi (No. 32 transfer, No. 7 edge). As a whole, Indiana’s transfer class ranks fifth nationally behind Penn State, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech and LSU, with all but one of those programs benefitting from first-year head coaches bringing talent to their new locales.

Two spots behind the Hoosiers — perhaps surprisingly, given the prolonged upheaval affixed to this program — is Ole Miss with eight commitments and three from players ranked among the top-110 prospects in the portal. The Rebels bid farewell to head coach Lane Kiffin in late November following his very public, very sordid courtship of openings at both Florida and LSU, with the latter ultimately securing his services. Athletic director Keith Carter wasted little time promoting defensive coordinator Pete Golding to head coach in a move that preserved a shred of continuity for a program enjoying arguably its best season in school history — even if the remainder of Ole Miss’ coaching staff was quickly ripped apart.

[Let's Debate: Most Impactful, Most Perplexing Transfer Portal Additions]

Kiffin ushering a handful of assistant coaches into new roles with the Tigers has left Ole Miss in the precarious position of not knowing exactly when, or exactly which, staffers would remain in Oxford through the playoff, a run that now includes victories over No. 11 Tulane and No. 3 Georgia. It has left Golding in the unenviable position of mining the portal shorthanded while simultaneously jousting with the media during each successive news conference, as reporters aim to nail down what his operation will look like when No. 6 Ole Miss faces No. 10 Miami in the Fiesta Bowl semifinal on Thursday night. Golding eventually confirmed that tight ends coach/co-offensive coordinator Joe Cox and wide receivers coach/passing game coordinator George McDonald, both hired by Kiffin, won’t be present for the game. 

"They have another job that is paying them, and they have a responsibility," Golding said in a news conference on Wednesday. "And at this time, the way the calendar is now, [LSU has] 35 guys that are in the portal. They have to build a team. Do they want to be here? You're damn right they do. But, again, the situation that it is, they've got a job to do, and they've got to build a team where they're at."

Though the coaching staffs at Indiana and Miami have been largely immune to that type of cratering, the Hoosiers, in particular, worked diligently to sign well-regarded coordinators Bryant Haines (defense) and Mike Shanahan (offense) to lucrative extensions earlier this season. 

Meanwhile, Lanning is trudging through some attrition of his own at Oregon. His offensive coordinator, Will Stein, agreed to become the next head coach at Kentucky, which has the ninth-best transfer portal class thanks to eight early commitments, including one from former Notre Dame quarterback Kenny Minchey (No. 64 transfer, No. 13 QB). Lanning’s defensive coordinator, Tosh Lupoi, agreed to become the next head coach at Cal, which has the nation’s No. 11 portal class and scored a huge win by convincing talented quarterback Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele to remain with the Bears. 

Throughout the playoff, both Stein and Lupoi have interspersed game prep with long nights and frequent trips to their new schools, bouncing back and forth from Eugene whenever possible. Lupoi even made a brief trip to Hawaii in his pursuit of Sagapolutele's re-commitment. Both Oregon coaches will remain with the Ducks through the remainder of the playoff. 

But that doesn't make Saban's mantra of doubling down on process any easier. Not when everything else in college football seems to be happening all at once. 

"The teams that can do the best at adapting and handling what's thrown at you [will win]," Lanning said. "We don't make the rules. We just have to adapt to them, and our guys handle that. They're tough kids. They can handle the chaos of a schedule. As much as we can keep it similar and consistent for them, as much as we can be open and honest with them, I think they can handle almost anything you pitch at them. And really, coaching staffs are built that way now, too."

Michael Cohen covers college football and college basketball for FOX Sports. Follow him at @Michael_Cohen13.

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