A Well-Earned Celebration
Following an unbelievable, historic 11-1 regular season, the Indiana football team and its new head coach, Curt Cignetti, have started piling up the awards and accolades.
Cignetti, unsurprisingly, won both awards for Big Ten Coach of the year, the Hayes-Schembechler Award and Dave McClain Coach of the Year. He’s the third Indiana coach to win coach of the year, and the first since Tom Allen did in 2020.
For the All-Big Ten Team, Indiana was represented by:
First team
- LB Aiden Fisher
- DB D’Angelo Ponds
- DL Mikail Kamara
Second team
- QB Kurtis Rourke
Third team
- WR Elijah Sarratt
- C Mike Katic
Honorable Mentions
- RB Justice Ellison
- WR/RS Myles Price
- TE Zach Horton
- OL Carter Smith
- DL CJ West
- LB Jailin Walker
- DL Lanell Carr Jr.
- DB Shawn Asbury II
- DL James Carpenter
- LS Mark Langston
- K Nicolas Radicic
Indiana being so well-represented up and down these lists show that the Hoosiers have the world’s attention, but there still may be some snubs. I can’t imagine Kurtis Rourke, the highest rated passer in the country per PFF, is happy with his second team placement.
Similarly, Jailin Walker’s statline against Purdue alone is a compelling argument for having him higher than honorable mention.
At the end of the day though, it’s good to see these players get this recognition. Hopefully the snubs only fuel this team to perform at an even higher level come Playoff time.