The Underdog Advantage: What Indiana’s Championship Win Teaches Us About Specialization
Last night, I watched something remarkable unfold in Miami Gardens. The Indiana Hoosiers—historically one of the most struggling programs in college football—defeated Miami 27-21 to claim their first-ever national championship with a perfect 16-0 season. The first team to go undefeated since Yale in 1894.
Let that sink in. A program that had only three winning seasons since 1995 just took down the traditional powerhouses.
As I watched the celebration, I couldn’t help but see a parallel to what we’re doing at DynamicsFocus.
The Blue Blood Problem
College football has its “blue bloods”—Alabama, Ohio State, Michigan, Notre Dame. Programs with unlimited resources, national recruiting machines, and decades of dominance. Everyone expects them to win. They’re built to do everything, be everywhere, recruit everyone.
The recruiting industry has its blue bloods too. The massive national search firms with offices in every major city, thousands of recruiters, and every industry under the sun on their capability statement. When companies need to hire, the conventional wisdom says: “Call the big guys.”
Indiana wasn’t built like that. And neither are we.
The Cignetti Blueprint
When Curt Cignetti took over Indiana in 2023, he did something counterintuitive. He didn’t try to out-recruit Alabama. He didn’t try to be everything to everyone. He focused relentlessly on what he did best, brought in players who fit his specific system, and told the world exactly what he was going to do.
His famous quote at a basketball game the day after being hired? “I’ve never taken a back seat to anybody and don’t plan on starting now.”
That’s the specialist mindset. Confidence born from deep expertise in a specific domain.
At DynamicsFocus, we made the same bet. We don’t recruit for every industry. We don’t place candidates across every functional area. We exclusively focus on Microsoft Dynamics 365 and NetSuite—and we’ve built our entire organization around knowing this ecosystem better than anyone else.
Why Specialization Wins
Indiana’s quarterback, Fernando Mendoza, wasn’t the #1 recruit in the country. He was an overlooked prospect who was headed to Yale before Cal offered at the last minute. But Cignetti saw exactly what he needed for his system. Mendoza won the Heisman and just led his team to a perfect season.
The big programs recruit five-star talents across every position. Indiana recruited the right talents for their specific approach.
This is exactly what we do at DynamicsFocus. While national firms cast wide nets hoping to catch the right candidate, we’re having conversations with Dynamics professionals every single day. We know who’s a FastTrack Recognized Solution Architect. We know who’s led successful Business Central implementations for manufacturing companies. We know who’s built custom Power Platform solutions that actually drive ROI.
When a PE-backed firm needs a Dynamics practice director, they don’t need 50 mediocre candidates from a generalist recruiter. They need three exceptional candidates who understand the Dynamics partner ecosystem, can lead billable consulting teams, and have actually done it before.
That’s the specialist advantage.
The Resource Reality
Here’s what nobody talks about: Indiana didn’t have bigger budgets than Alabama. They had focus.
DynamicsFocus doesn’t have more recruiters than the big national firms. But every single person on our team wakes up thinking about one thing: Microsoft Dynamics and NetSuite talent.
While a generalist recruiter is juggling a healthcare CFO search, a manufacturing VP of Operations role, and a software engineering position, our team is building relationships within the Dynamics Partner of the Year community, attending Summit conferences, and understanding the nuances between Business Central, F&O, and CE implementations.
This depth of focus creates something the big firms simply cannot replicate: true subject matter expertise at every level of our organization.
Betting on Yourself
Cignetti left his position as an Alabama assistant in 2010 to become a head coach at Division II Indiana University of Pennsylvania—accepting a massive pay cut to bet on himself and his approach.
We made a similar choice. We could have been another generalist search firm, competing for every search in every industry. Instead, we bet that deep specialization in the ERP ecosystem would create more value for our clients than broad generalization ever could.
It’s a harder path. When you specialize, you’re saying no to opportunities outside your focus area. But it’s also the path that builds something truly differentiated.
The Championship Moment
Indiana’s win last night wasn’t luck. It was the culmination of a focused strategy, deep expertise, and the courage to compete differently than everyone else.
They went 16-0 against teams with bigger budgets, more history, and more resources. They did it by being better at what they chose to do.
That’s our blueprint at DynamicsFocus. We’re not trying to be the biggest search firm. We’re building the firm that Dynamics partners, PE-backed companies, and enterprise clients call when they need to get the hire right—not just filled.
The Takeaway
This morning, the college football world is waking up to a new reality: the specialist beat the blue bloods.
In executive search, that same shift is underway. Companies are realizing that the firm with the deepest expertise in their specific domain delivers better outcomes than the firm with the biggest brand name.
Indiana proved it on the field last night. We’re proving it every day in the Dynamics ecosystem.
Sometimes, the underdog wins—not in spite of being smaller, but because of the focus that being smaller enables.
To the Indiana Hoosiers: congratulations on an incredible championship. And to Coach Cignetti: thank you for showing us what’s possible when you bet on specialization, focus, and deep expertise.
To the companies building their Dynamics teams: when you’re ready to work with a firm that knows your ecosystem as deeply as Cignetti knew his system, let’s talk.