Editor’s note: This series is part of our No Wrong Answers series, which explores the college sports questions you’ve always been curious about — and the ones you never thought to ask.Sports fans have a strange instinct to witness something incredible, improbable, incomparable, practically unimaginable, and wonder: When will this thing that has never happened before happen again?Weird, right? We’re constantly searching for the next extreme outlier, which is by definition hard to find.Indiana wrote one of the greatest stories in American sports over the last two seasons, going from losingest program in major college football history to undefeated national champions. It was an unprecedented turnaround by coach Curt Cignetti’s Hoosiers.“We didn’t think this was possible, and when someone does the impossible, it becomes possible,” said Big Ten Network analyst Gerry DiNardo, who coached at Indiana from 2002 to ’04.So, of course, the tempting question: Who will be the next Indiana?“I don’t see it happening,” said former Notre Dame and NFL quarterback Brady Quinn, now a commentator for Fox. “There’s no program that could mimic the amount of misery the program went through for such a long period of time.”What happened to Indiana was a complete metamorphosis. The Next Indiana needs to be a caterpillar capable of turning into a beautiful butterfly. One of the most difficult things to do in college football is for a program to dramatically change its status. Over the last 35 years, Oregon did it. Clemson did it in the 2010s. Bill Snyder’s Manhattan Miracle at Kansas State in the 1990s has some similarities to what Cignetti has orchestrated in Bloomington. But Snyder’s Wildcats never did reach the top of the mountain, which Cignetti and the Hoosiers did, two years removed from a 3-9 finish.Maybe it’s folly to embark upon this search. But let’s give it a try anyway.Three storylines to watch: Indiana, Arch and KiffinStewart MandelOn the bright side, almost all of the 138 schools that will compete this year in the Football Bowl Subdivision, the NCAA’s top tier of college football, can be easily and almost instantly eliminated from qualification.Not in a Power 4 conference? Bye.Any college football program that has previously won a national championship is out.In fact, let’s eliminate any current Power 4 football program with an all-time winning percentage above .500 — with one exception.A straight line can be drawn from Indiana to Virginia when it comes to roster-building strategy. It’s all about experience, production and fit when coach Tony Elliott’s program dips into the portal.Off the field, Virginia isn’t the ACC’s biggest spender, but there has been an undeniable change in institutional commitment to football in Charlottesville.UVA won 11 games last season and would have reached the CFP had it beaten Duke in the ACC Championship Game. The Cavaliers entered this season unranked, with all the so-called experts (self included) dismissing them as a regression candidate. Sounds a lot like where Indiana was heading into 2025. Turns out, IU was just getting ramped up.Virginia made a Week 0 statement Saturday, beating NC State 34-8 at a sold-out Scott Stadium.Virginia brings a lot of Indiana vibes into 2026, but I doubt second-tier ACC budgets are enough to win national championships. Maybe Virginia is the Next Indiana Lite.That leaves a group of programs with a long history of haplessness (listed from worst all-time winning percentage to best): Wake Forest, Northwestern, Iowa State, Kansas State, Kansas, Mississippi State, Vanderbilt, Rutgers, SMU, Duke and Kentucky. You’ll immediately notice that many of the comps are traditionally “basketball schools,” just like Indiana used to be.The aforementioned Kansas State can be scratched off. The Wildcats have been consistent winners for 30 years now.SMU is eliminated because before getting the NCAA’s “Death Penalty” in the 1980s, the Mustangs were awesome — no matter how they got there. And now, the program has regained its footing.That whittles the list to a final nine.