Two years ago Indiana football recruiting was a punchline. Now Curt Cignetti has the Hoosiers sitting on the biggest recruiting get in program history, and it didn't come from some random pipeline state — it came from 20 minutes down the road in Indianapolis.
The news broke Thursday afternoon: five-star WR Monshun Sales is picking Indiana over blue bloods.
Sales, a 6'5", 210-pound target out of Lawrence North High School, is the No. 2 receiver in the 2027 class according to Rivals and was drawing serious interest from Alabama, Texas, LSU, Ohio State, Miami and dozens of others before shutting it all down for Cignetti. That's not a program trending up landing a solid three-star — that's a genuine blue-chip prospect picking Bloomington over the SEC and the Big Ten's biggest brands.
The scale of it is what makes this different. Indiana had never landed a five-star recruit in program history before Sales. Not one. Cignetti flipped that in his second full cycle on campus, and beat writers immediately framed it as the latest data point in a program that went from irrelevant to a CFP team almost overnight.
Sales' production and recruiting profile, laid out with the full list of schools he passed on.
5 ⭐️ Monshun Sales and #2 WR in the class of 2027 (8th overall) commits to Indiana over Ohio State, LSU, Texas, Alabama, Miami, and 33 other schools. He finished the 2025 season with 794 yards (21.5 ypc) and 9 TDs along with 56 tackles on defense. He is the highest rated ever recruit to commit to the Hooisers.
The tape backs up the ranking. Sales finished his 2025 junior season with 794 yards on 21.5 yards per catch and 9 touchdowns, and he's a two-way problem — he also racked up 56 tackles on defense. That's a receiver who can win vertically and a prospect programs were fighting over as a potential defensive back too, which is part of why the field on his recruitment was so loaded.
Sales downplayed the hype himself after making it official. "To be the highest-rated recruit is a blessing. At the end of the day rankings don't mean anything. I'm just ready to work!" he said, a line that's on brand for a kid who just turned down four blue-blood programs to stay home.
Sales explained the mindset behind picking Indiana as the highest-ranked recruit in school history.
This isn't happening in a vacuum, either. Indiana's 2027 class already had four blue-chip commits before Sales, including four-star edge Myles Smith and four-star receiver Branden Sharpe, and Cignetti has been quietly stacking the board all offseason. Landing the state's best player, and one of the best in the country, is the kind of commitment that changes how every other in-state and regional recruit views the program going forward — and it's a direct result of Indiana's breakout run turning Cignetti into a coach kids in Indianapolis actually want to play for.