By Chris Schumerth | @ChrisSchumerth
Sports Capital Journalism Program
LOS ANGELES—Pat Coogan was an intriguing name to show up in the transfer portal a little more than eleven months ago. The 6-5, 310-pounder from Palo Heights, Illinois had started 26 games at center and left guard in his previous two seasons at Notre Dame, including a 27-17 win over Indiana in the first round of last season’s College Football Playoff.
Indiana senior linebacker Aiden Fisher remembered an aspect of Coogan’s game that went beyond his productivity and experience. “I don’t think we ever had like a one-on-one situation,” Fisher said, “but I’m pretty sure him and me got chippy a couple of times. And yeah, we’re just talking to each other…After playing Notre Dame, I remember kind of walking away like, ‘Their center was pretty good.’”
If it was Coogan’s mouth that first got Fisher’s attention on the field in South Bend, he would add to that reputation with the colorful, pre-game speech that went viral after Notre Dame dismantled Georgia, 23-10, in last season’s Sugar Bowl College Football Playoff quarterfinal. And it’s precisely that image – thanks to Coogan’s carefully-selected adjectives — that makes you pause and squint your eyes at the sight of Coogan wearing Indiana crimson.
Now that Coogan’s Hoosiers will take a No. 1 ranking into the Rose Bowl Game against Alabama, his prominent presence represents a new era of colliding commitments; loyalty, authenticity and the business decisions young athletes have suddenly confronted in an unprecedented era of collegiate sports. It’s the broader concern, writ large, about the direction the industry is taking.
And yet there were more than financial considerations in Coogan’s situation. The offensive line group the Irish were bringing back was expected to be young, talented, and deep, and that included Ashton Craig, the soon-to-be-junior Coogan had replaced after Craig’s injury in Notre Dame’s week three game at Purdue. Yes, Coogan had demonstrated his value as both a player and leader, but that didn’t mean there would be guarantees for him moving forward.
“They were open and honest with me, and I was honest with them,” Coogan said of his Notre Dame coaches. There were those conversations and the ones Coogan had with his parents, and then just three days after Notre Dame’s 34-23 loss to Ohio State in the national championship game last January, Coogan’s name was in the transfer portal.
With an immediate advocate down in Bloomington.
“Once we saw (Coogan) hit the portal,” Fisher says, looking back, “after our strength and conditioning coach kind of telling us who was in the portal, and I saw it on Twitter, I was like, ‘Whatever you guys need me to do, we’ve got to go get that guy.’”
Fisher’s reasons for wanting Coogan—a guy that could help IU on the football field—may have been self-serving, but there is a teammate on the Indiana roster whose parallel path provides additional insight into the decision-making process.
Senior reserve Zen Michalski came back to his home state to provide Indiana with depth at offensive guard and tackle for his final season after his own appearance in last year’s national championship while playing a similar role at Ohio State. “You have to understand that it is a business,” Michalski says, “and I feel like that’s one of the biggest things about being with (IU coach Curt Cignetti)…He wants to bring the program someone that is coachable, like no egos, egos aside, like you have to be able to take the coaching and go on with your day and not, like, you know what I mean, take it as anything more than what it is.”
Coogan and Michalski made sense for Notre Dame and Ohio State in 2024-25; now they make sense at Indiana. Two young men, doing what’s right for themselves, their families, and their new team.
And now, nearly a year after both Coogan and Michalski made their decisions, and as IU is set to play in its first Rose Bowl since 1968, there will be a line of teammates who will be ready to defend the authenticity of their passion. Coogan is still giving pre-game speeches. Even when they are primarily aimed at Coogan’s position group in the locker room, Fisher said he sometimes takes off his headphones to listen.
Likewise, here’s the endorsement from the team’s second-leading receiver, Elijah Sarratt: “He’s one of the best speech givers that I’ve really been around, truly. So I don’t know what he’s going to say in in that moment. He doesn’t know what he’s going to say in that moment, but when he does, it really gets us ready for that game.”