INDIANAPOLIS — When D’Angelo Ponds sat inside Curt Cignetti’s office at Memorial Stadium during his visit with Indiana football in spring 2024, his father, Angelo, accompanied the defensive back.
D'Angelo, who entered the transfer portal at the end of James Madison University’s spring practice, pledged to the Hoosiers on the visit and became one of 13 former Dukes to follow Cignetti.
As the three assessed Indiana’s 2024 schedule, eclipsing the six-win threshold to reach a bowl game appeared a certainty to Angelo. He had no doubt. Cignetti didn’t either, but he eyed more.
“Coach Cig looked at him like, ‘Bowl game?’” D’Angelo recalled Thursday inside the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis. “‘We're going to win it all.’”
While the Hoosiers didn’t reach the sport’s pinnacle in Cignetti’s first year at the helm, they did in his second: 16-0 national champions. Indiana did what nobody thought it could do, Ponds said.
Now, instead of returning to Indiana for grueling winter workouts, spring ball or fall camp for another season, Ponds said he’s in a spot others thought he wouldn’t be: the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis.
He placed his full attention on the combine once the season ended Jan. 19. It’s a full-circle moment for the former three-star recruit, who’s one of the Hoosiers’ nine representatives in Indianapolis.
“It’s a dream come true, honestly,” Ponds said. “It’s something every football player would want to be here. For me to be one of those guys, it means the world to me.”
The Miami native will do all the defensive back drills alongside the vertical jump at Lucas Oil Stadium on Friday. He said he's waiting to run the 40-yard dash at Indiana’s Pro Day on April 1 in Bloomington.
Ponds’ near week in Indianapolis provides him the opportunity to meet with NFL scouts and front offices, both formally and informally.
But there's uncertainty among draft analysts about Ponds’ translation to the NFL. It centers on his physical archetype; Indiana listed him as 5-foot-9, 173 pounds in 2025.
The average NFL cornerback stands 5-foot-11 and weighs 180 pounds. Both are marks Ponds doesn’t reach — and ones he “can’t control.” Teams may look to shift him into a nickel or slot corner role, which smaller defensive backs often occupy.
“I’m not worried about where I’m going to play at,” Ponds said. “Wherever they need me at, I’m going to play and I’m going to be dominant at it.”
But teams “haven’t really” asked many height-centric questions throughout meetings, he said.
Instead, most have inquired about his internal makeup. Perhaps no two plays throughout his career better embody his mindset than the two marquee turnovers he forced during Indiana’s College Football Playoff run.
Ponds said every coach he’d met with as of Thursday morning played back his pick-6 on the first play from scrimmage against Oregon in the Peach Bowl on Jan. 9. The play spoke for itself.
“Just showed them my football IQ, how I watch film and study quarterbacks,” Ponds said. “And knowing quick game, knowing the ball had to come out fast and things like that.”
Just a game prior, Ponds forced a fumble against the University of Alabama in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1, displaying his physicality. Despite his 5-inch and 35-pound deficit to Ty Simpson, Ponds leveled the Crimson Tide quarterback and made a critical momentum-shifting play.
Although his measurables may be a talking point, Ponds’ mentality is the correct one, he said, and it's because of where he’s from.
South Florida is often home to some of the nation’s top recruits in each recruiting class. Even players without the recruiting prowess, such as former two-star quarterback Fernando Mendoza and Ponds, blossom into heralded NFL prospects.
Ohio State receiver Jeremiah Smith, who’s viewed as the best receiver in next year’s draft class, and Ponds were even teammates at Chaminade-Madonna College Preparatory in Hollywood, Florida — a suburb nearly 20 miles north of Miami.
“Miami is basically a football city,” Ponds said. “You have to be a competitor. You’re going against top competition, and that’s what made me who I am today.”
Ponds’ three years under defensive coordinator Bryant Haines and Cignetti refined him into a projected second-round selection, according to the NFL Mock Draft Database.
His 41 collegiate games — 28 of them at Indiana — taught him about his resiliency. He went from an under-the-radar corner to one of the nation’s best. Now, in less than two months, he’ll embark on his NFL career with whichever team drafts him.
What that team is getting in return is simple, and Ponds has proven it.
“I would say I’m a winner,” he said, “and I just have that winning mindset.”
Follow reporters Dalton James (@DaltonMJames and jamesdm@iu.edu) and Conor Banks (@Conorbanks06 and conbanks@iu.edu) for updates throughout the Indiana football offseason.
