BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Curt Cignetti had taken over ailing programs before, so that part didn’t intimidate him. But he did want to know that Indiana University was committed to succeeding at the highest level of college football before he took this job.
“The things that are important to success are different now than they were 10 years ago,” Cignetti said in an interview this week. “NIL is a big thing. Collectives. You can’t compete if you don’t have it — and have enough of it. There was a commitment there, and it grew and grew and grew. It allowed us to get done what we had to get done (with our roster) in December. It would have been very difficult to fill a football team with all the guys that left. That’s what you see nowadays, more and more. When the coach leaves, there are guys leaving.”
Cignetti initially didn’t realize just how many Indiana players had hopped in the transfer portal following Tom Allen’s departure. There weren’t many left. He said he didn’t see the light of day over the next three weeks as he worked to build his staff and rebuild a roster. Seven of his assistants from JMU came with him, as did 13 players. He scoured the portal, too, looking for experience — multi-year starters, ideally, who had proven to be consistent, dependable players. The idea was that these were players who had shown they could handle success (and failure); they had likely overcome obstacles to get to where they’d been. That, to Cignetti, was more valuable than backups who had barely seen the field at Power 4 schools. One of the most important additions was Kurtis Rourke, the quarterback from Ohio University who had been the MAC’s Offensive Player of the Year in 2022. Twenty-eight other transfers joined Rourke and the rest of the Hoosiers.
“I’m not necessarily a guy that lives by the portal year and year out, but I mean, this was a necessity,” Cignetti said. “Look, I wasn’t going to take four or five years to win. Like, back in the day, you just try to build a program by your fourth year. Nowadays, you’ve got to win now, because this is the I-want-it-now society and times.
“And I’m not used to not winning, so we were going to win now. And it all worked out.”
The Hoosiers are currently 8-0 and ranked 13th in the country heading into Saturday’s game at Michigan State. It’s just the second time in program history that Indiana has started a season 8-0; the Hoosiers have never won 10 games in a single season. They have not trailed for a single snap at any point this season, and they’ve won all eight of their games by double figures. Indiana has a real path to the College Football Playoff.
So, yes, the Hoosiers are winning now. Cignetti, in just the first year of a six-year, $27 million deal, is the runaway favorite for National Coach of the Year. He’s made something that has historically been very difficult — winning football games as the head football coach of Indiana — look quite easy. This is the program that has lost more football games than any other in the history of the sport, and it’s now college football’s darling.
Smashing success at Indiana (of all places) may have a lasting impact on the rest of college football. Now, expectations for any first-year coach at any school may be even higher (and perhaps unattainable) than ever before. You know, if even Indiana could do it …
Athletic director Scott Dolson said he’s not sure that his hire here has added any more pressure to decisions made by his peers — because they’re perpetually in high-pressure situations. Football is already so important to every athletic department’s bottom line, particularly as college sports heads into the expensive new world of revenue-sharing.
“In this era of college football, it’s about immediate gratification,” Dolson said. “People do want to win, right away, and the reality is not everybody can win, so there’s going to be some, some bumps in the road. You just hope that the lows aren’t too low, and you can rebound quickly from those.”
Dolson admitted that he’d “be lying” if he said the 8-0 start and the fan base rallying around it hasn’t exceeded all of his expectations, though. He said he’d hoped for some success and confidence, proof that Cignetti and his staff were building a consistent, highly competitive team. But he — and those of us outside of Bloomington — may have underestimated Cignetti’s portal savvy and player development. He’s a great evaluator of talent, for sure. He’s also pushed every right button as he’s built a disciplined, sound team that, just a week ago, survived its first full game without its starting quarterback.
But can it work this well for others?
Two agents who spoke to NBC Sports under the condition of anonymity to speak candidly about the coaching market said that there are a few lessons that other athletic directors and coaches should take from Cignetti’s Year 1 success. First, there’s a huge benefit to hiring a sitting head coach — because he can bring good players from his previous stop with him. They can not only become key contributors on the field, but they can help instill the coach’s culture quickly.
Sitting head coaches, especially those who have won at lower levels (like Cignetti, who began his head coaching career in Division II), may also be better equipped to handle roster construction in the current era. They’ve previously had to deal with their best players getting poached by others. They’re used to making tough budgetary decisions. They’re used to doing more with less in general. (“There’s nothing more frustrating for an AD than a head coach who always asks for more and is never satisfied with his resources,” one agent said.)
But even if other athletic directors want to replicate what Indiana did, it’s not like there are a ton of Cignettis out there. There are Kansas coach Lance Leipold and Kansas State coach Chris Klieman, who both cut their teeth as head coaches in Division III. And there’s Liberty head coach Jamey Chadwell, whose first head coaching job was in Division II. But these coaches’ paths are uncommon, and it takes the rare athletic director to pluck someone with a resume like theirs to lead a power-conference program, with fan bases that get enamored with hotshot coordinators. You may not win the press conference. But you might win games.
Ultimately, it’s hard to predict whether those making hires will learn from what’s worked so far at Indiana. One agent called it a “copycat hiring era,” but at the same time he cautioned that even when people try to duplicate practices, they make mistakes.
The second agent pointed out that Cignetti’s early success could become just another data point for impatient athletic directors and donors. In the past, they’d be forced to give coaches time, waiting in many cases at least a full four-year recruiting cycle to see if they could turn things around. In the portal era, those leashes are getting shorter and shorter. Some programs expect turnarounds by Year 2 or, at the very least, Year 3. Florida is one that comes to mind, with third-year coach Billy Napier currently sitting on the hottest season in the country. The pre-Mike Norvell era at Florida State is another good example, with Willie Taggart lasting less than two full seasons at the helm.
The coaching carousel will begin to spin in earnest in the coming weeks, as schools make changes in order to bring in their next coach and next great hope. And it’s worth wondering if any athletic director will learn from the magic that’s sprinkled all over Bloomington. Curt Cignetti might not have been the biggest splash of last year’s cycle, and Indiana certainly wasn’t on anyone’s CFP radar entering this season. But this is the 63-year-old man who has defined the 2024 college football season so far — and this hire is the one who might set wildly unrealistic expectations for everyone else.
“I guess that’s a good thing,” Cignetti said, smiling.
