Best All-Time Turnarounds in Sports: Where do Indiana, Patriots, Cubs Rank?

Doormat. Glorified practice. Guaranteed win.

College football teams could have been forgiven for thinking that about Indiana when they saw the Hoosiers on their upcoming schedule. 

But that was before Curt Cignetti arrived in Bloomington.

Top-ranked Indiana was one of the most hapless college football programs, with more losses all time than any other FBS program in history before the Cignetti era began. Now, the Hoosiers are a wrecking ball and one of the most remarkable stories in sports. What they've achieved in two seasons is nothing short of historic. 

And ahead of Monday's College Football Playoff national championship game between No. 1 Indiana and the No. 10 Miami Hurricanes, the Hoosiers' quick progress has us wondering: What are the greatest two-season turnarounds in sports?

There are plenty of worthy candidates from MLB for this list. Most recently, the Rangers and Diamondbacks both went from 100-loss teams in 2021 to unlikely World Series competitors in 2023 (though neither has been able to follow up on that success since). In 2010, the Giants won their first of three World Series of the decade, just a couple of years removed from consecutive 90-loss seasons in San Francisco. There's also the Rays, who made it to the World Series in 2008 after three straight last-place finishes. And there's the unlikely championships of the 1997 and 2003 Marlins. 

But the curse-breaking 2016 Cubs stand out here for history’s sake. Not only had it been 108 years since the last time they won a championship, but they also finished in fifth place for five straight seasons from 2010-14. They lost a lot (102 games in 2012, 96 in 2013, 89 in 2014) before making a drastic 24-win improvement in 2015, a season that ended with them