Coach Kern's 5th Rebuild - Indiana

For the last scheduled Power 4 Rebuild I wanted to go with a team that has never won a title. Taking the members of the Power 6 conferences in the year 2000, 63 teams are labeled Power 6. Of those 63, 37 have won a title which leaves 26 to choose from.

From those 26, I eliminated any team inside of the game's Top 25. This eliminates Arizona, Kansas, NC State, Oregon, Virginia Tech, and Wisconsin.

That leaves 20 teams. From there I eliminated any team inside the top 40 of the top 25 on ESPN's Preseason FPI. That eliminates Kansas State, Missouri, Oregon State, South Carolina, Texas Tech, and West Virginia.

That leaves 14 teams. I removed Temple and Washington State as they are no longer Power 4 schools (Temple was in the Big East at the time with Miami, Pitt, Virginia Tech but ended up in the American instead of the ACC; Washington State was in the Pac 10 at the time with Oregon, USC, Washington, UCLA but with conference realignment saw themselves outside of a Power 4 conference).

So the final list involves 12 teams:

Arizona State

Baylor

Duke

Indiana

Iowa State

Miss State

UNC

Northwestern

Purdue

Vanderbilt

Virginia

Wake Forest

I can create a compelling case for wanting to do any of these 12 teams as my last Power 4 team to rebuild. I think Vanderbilt and Northwestern are popular teams to rebuild so I decided to not choose them. I refused Duke and Virginia as a Maryland native. Leaving 8 teams. Baylor, UNC, Miss State, Iowa State have all had recent success so I eliminated them.

That leaves 4 teams: Arizona State, Indiana, Purdue, Wake Forest.

Of those 4, I chose to take over Indiana. Long considered a basketball school (who has a long drought of basketball success), Indiana has struggled on the football field.

Indiana's last bowl win was 1991 when Trent Green was QB. Aside from the Covid shortened year the last time Indiana finished the year ranked was 1988. They have only finished in the top 10 twice in their history (1967 and 1945). 1967 was Indiana's only Rose Bowl appearance. They lost to #1 USC 14-3.

Dismissing the shortened Covid year, Indiana has had 2 winning seasons since 1994 (8-5 in 2019 and 7-6 in 2007). They have not won more than 8 games since going 9-2 in 1967. For all those reasons Indiana is my pick to rebuild in College Football 25.

Click here to see the Results of Season 1. (LINK COMING SOON)