This program can do remarkable things and its been proven more than once,
If you’re an outside observer, Indiana’s history as a football program is Pretty Bad.
The Hoosiers have lost more games than anyone else at the FBS level, haven’t won a bowl game in decades, haven’t beaten Ohio State since the 80’s (a day called the darkest in Ohio State’s history), and haven’t looked like a good program.
And we’re not fully going into the attendance discourse here but that’s absolutely also a factor at play with outside perception.
That is what the program looks like to any media looking in who haven’t watched the teams slip up like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football in almost every big game, make backbreaking fourth quarter mistakes or just plain lose quietly.
It looks like that to coaching candidates too.
So what Indiana really needed, and probably has for a long time, was one of those outside candidates to look at all that history over his shoulder once and only that once and go “bullshit”.
That’s what the program got in Curt Cignetti.
Indiana conducted maybe the most thorough coaching search the athletic department has gone through in years for what the current collegiate landscape has dictated to be the most important position on campus second only to maybe the president: the head football coach.
With the landscape changing rapidly, Indiana needed to find a candidate who not only had a winning track record but was prepared for the additional challenges that come with leading an athletic program in 2024.
Again, Cignetti is that.
By all public comments he doesn’t pay too much mind to conference realignment, NIL discourse or any of the other hot button issues that you’ll see on the front page of any sports website. Tell him the framework and he’ll go win with it. And he has.
Indiana is 6-0, nationally ranked, and heading into the most important stretch of the season against teams that’ll put up much more of a fight than any of the ones the Hoosiers have felled thus far.
To which you can retort that Tom Allen got to bowl eligibility. He beat those same Maryland, Northwestern and lesser nonconference foes. Indiana has seen this before, right? How can it be different??
Well,
- These are not the same programs Allen beat. Mike Locksley’s Maryland owned a winning streak for a reason.
- Indiana never had to fly across the entire country for one of those conference games and never once blew out a Big Ten opponent on the road, as these Hoosiers did to UCLA.
- Those Indiana teams, even though they ultimately won in the end and good on them for doing so, just barely squeaked by those inferior opponents. Cignetti’s group is blowing those teams out of the water and slamming the door shut with authority in the fourth quarter.
It’s different. Just is.
If you’ve watched, and I mean actually watched Indiana for the past decade-plus, you’d know what the program has been. Indiana has competed with the Big Boys of the college football world while occasionally skirting by those that are, at best, its equals in standing.
You’ve seen it. A missed PI in the endzone against Ohio State in a close game. A complete collapse late against Michigan. Calling three straight runs up the gut for some reason when you’re in a position to take a lead on the road against Penn State.
Or letting a backup quarterback named Billy Edwards come in and run all over your defense in the fourth to secure a win. Or looking completely outmatched on homecoming weekend against a passing-averse Rutgers team. Or letting a different backup quarterback throw for a literal historic amount of yards in a loss to eliminate the possibility of bowl eligibility. Or-
I think you get it.
This version of Indiana, up to this point, has not let that happen. Games may be closer than you’d like when the fourth quarter rolls around, but these Hoosiers absolutely slam the door shut.
They keep scoring on offense to go up multiple scores and build a cushion while making just enough plays on defense to keep the opposing offense from getting comfortable as has happened to Indiana teams past.
And it’s not easy to beat those inferior-on-paper teams like that by the way. Just ask Miami, Tennessee, Alabama, USC, Mississippi, Florida State and I could keep going but I feel like I’ve made my point here.
Indiana has always, always been capable of this. It just needed to hire the right person to make it happen.
Which is why, judging on how this team has been constructed from a staff and personnel standpoint, the athletic department has to make sure Cignetti stays in Bloomington for as long as possible.
You cannot afford to backslide in this era. Give him a raise. A fleet of sports cars. Rename “Indiana Ave” to “Cignetti Ave.”
You simply do not have to go “aw shucks!” if some big program comes along offering a bag. It’s a power four athletic institution competing in the most flush for cash conference in the country and its future in said conference is pretty secure but especially so if the football program is winning.
And if you think the department can’t do that? Look up the list of the largest coaching buyouts in the history of college football and remind yourself how Cignetti got here in the first place.
Indiana can do this. It can compete. Do not let anyone tell you otherwise.