Curt Cignetti, Indiana undaunted after offseason spent as a CFP talking point

New York Times

3 days ago

LAS VEGAS — Curt Cignetti's Indiana Hoosiers won a school-record 11 games and qualified for the College Football Playoff in 2024, yet critics hammered them as undeserving of their CFP selection because they played what was perceived as a weak schedule within one of college football's toughest conferences.
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Instead of absorbing the body blows and ignoring the rhetoric at Big Ten media days on Tuesday, Cignetti trumpeted his team's 2024 accolades and, in the process, became his league's staunchest defender. Cignetti brought the receipts and dished plenty of bravado. And the second-year Indiana coach offered no apologies for his success.
'We played who we played,' Cignetti said. 'We had the No. 1 victory margin in college football, with No. 2 in points scored, No. 3 in total defense, No. 3 in turnover ratio. So we did it in dominant fashion.'
Those numbers seemed to pass anyone's eye test, despite the conversation entering the CFP and immediately following the Hoosiers' first-round CFP exit at Notre Dame. Ten of Indiana's 11 victories came by a margin of at least 14 points. It beat both 2024 CFP finalists (Michigan and Washington), and its only losses came at 2025 CFP finalists Ohio State and Notre Dame. Indiana also beat Nebraska 56-7, and the Huskers' 18-point win over Colorado, which was part of the Big 12's four-way tie for first, should have provided a transitive property boost to its resume.
Instead, the Hoosiers found the public backlash that non-bluebloods often face when they approach the sport's highest levels.
'The noise got real, real loud going into the Ohio State game,' Cignetti recalled. 'We went from being the darling story of college football to being like the enemy, the hunted. Like these two fronts, the biggest college reporting venue in the world, and a big conference down south, you're getting it from both sides. Like, 'They better play good or they're out.' But then a couple SEC teams lost that night.'
If Cignetti was surprised about the criticism, he didn't let it bother him. In fact, it seems to have emboldened him. Instead of ramping up the Hoosiers' nonconference scheduling, Cignetti chose to downgrade it, canceling a home-and-home series with Virginia that was set for 2027-28.
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'We figured we would just adopt SEC scheduling philosophy,' Cignetti said. 'Some people don't like it. I'm more focused in on those nine conference games.'
This season, 13 of the Big Ten's 18 schools will play at least 10 power-conference opponents. In the SEC, 13 of 16 teams will play only nine power-conference foes. The decision was a power play of sorts for Indiana, which desires to face an SEC opponent every year — when a new CFP format is in place.
'We really want to have meaningful regular-season games,' Indiana athletic director Scott Dolson said. 'We're trying to schedule now based on the format that we're playing.'
That philosophy is not without detractors, even from within his conference. Purdue coach Barry Odom told an Indianapolis radio station last week that 'I could take the approach of one of the other schools in the state, cancel games and do some of those things, but the schedule is what it is.'
On Tuesday, Cignetti said, 'I saw it. It was a flicker in my brain, and it was over.'
When asked about the challenges of playing on the West Coast, Cignetti quipped, 'It didn't affect us against UCLA.' The Hoosiers beat the Bruins 42-13 last year.
Cignetti's unvarnished confidence has resonated at Indiana, historically the Big Ten's least successful football program. The Hoosiers never won more than nine games in a season before last year, and now they're selling out Memorial Stadium. Cignetti's 'I win, Google me' line during his inaugural news conference became a program flex. Last year's results led to enthusiastic buy-in in Bloomington.
'He instills confidence in his players and his coaches and certainly our fan base and everyone who's around him,' Dolson said. 'But the good thing is, he's very authentic. He is not what I would call a cocky person at all. I think he just believes in his plan and believes he knows how to win and how to develop young men on and off the field.
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'When you really get to know him, and you see just how authentic he is and how he really is doing these things for the right reasons, it makes it easy to not let any of the, maybe, outside noise and the bravado — it's just not fake. He just really believes in what he's doing.'
That confidence has spilled over to Cignetti's program pillars of recruitment, development and retention. Through strong donations to its name, image and likeness efforts, Indiana retained every key player and acquired several likely contributors, including starting quarterback Fernando Mendoza from Cal. With four players returning who earned All-Big Ten accolades along with several other starters, Cignetti has his eyes on repeating or, perhaps, topping his 2024 success. And his goals reflect his swagger.
'This is a new year, a new team, right?' Cignetti said. 'We're trying to build a program that year-in, year-out, competes for Big Ten championships, College Football Playoff and ultimately the national championship. That's our vision.'