Most Big Ten college football fans are familiar with the quote. Shortly after being hired by Indiana at a December 20 press conference for the early signing period, when asked how he is selling his vision to Indiana recruits, Curt Cignetti said, “It’s pretty simple. I win. Google me.”
A couple weeks before the infamous “Google me” quote at an Indiana home basketball game, Cignetti declared he has never taken a backseat to anyone, and he doesn’t plan to start doing it as football coach at Indiana before boldly stating that Purdue sucks and “so does Michigan and Ohio State”.
In sports, hyperbole seems to be a constant so, it’s a rare occurrence when someone actually backs up the bold talk. And that is exactly what Indiana and Cignetti has done standing at 6-0 on the year, with all the wins in double digits and an AP poll ranking of 18.
According to ESPN’s Allstate Playoff Predictor (link below), Indiana currently has the 9th best chance of any team in the nation at 52% of making the expanded 12-team playoff field. Their 6-0 start is their best since 1967 (47 years) and according to ESPN’s FPI (College Football Power) Index, Indiana will be favored in every remaining game except at Ohio State November 22. Indiana fans and college football experts are in shock.
2024 college football Allstate Playoff Predictor (espn.com)
All this despite Indiana being the historical worst team in the Big Ten and possibly the entire nation in Division 1 football. Here are some sobering Indiana stats:
- Playing college football since 1887, Indiana has 712 losses, the most of any FBS team overtaking Northwestern in 2012
- All-time record of 512-712-44, which is the third worst winning percent of any FBS team with over 1,000 games played
- Have not had a coach with a winning record since 1947 under Bo McMillin (1934 to 1947 with a record of 63-48-11)
- Have not won the Big Ten since 1967
- Have not won a bowl game since 1991
- Since 1994 (over 30 years) has only had 2 winning seasons within conference (2019, 2020)
- Have not had a first round NFL draft pick since 1994 (WR Thomas Lewis went 24th overall to New York Giants)
Many football experts feel Indiana is a place where it is almost impossible to consistently win but Cignetti doesn’t care about any of that. He has a plan and a formula for success that he 100% believes in and he is executing that with impressive results thus far.
What is his secret? It’s the same philosophy that led to his hiring. It’s about:
The Curt Cignetti Indiana Football Lesson – PRODUCTION OVER POTENTIAL
Indiana Athletic Director Scott Dolson has been in the role since March 2020 taking over for Fred Glass who had hired prior Hoosier football coach Tom Allen in December, 2016. Allen succeeded Kevin Wilson and had decent initial success before having a breakout year in 2019 going 8-5 overall and losing in the Gator Bowl to Tennessee. The next season was the Covid year and behind the LEO (Love Each Other) theme, IU again had a great year going 6-2, including 6-1 in the Big Ten and almost made the Big Ten championship game.
From there, things went completely south for Allen due to a variety of issues as Indiana saw records of 2-10, 4-8 and 3-9 in his last 3 years, which was the worst in the Big Ten over that period. This led to AD Dolson deciding to fire him after the 2023 season and hire Cignetti.
In late August right before this season started, Dolson appeared on the Inside Indiana Football radio show to talk about why he thought Cignetti was the perfect coach for the Indiana job. He said he came up with 12-to-15 qualities that he wanted in a new head coach based on looking at programs similar to Indiana like North Carolina, Duke, Kansas and Kentucky. And also analyzed the last 50 years at Indiana to determine why some coaches succeeded and others failed.
Dolson did not reveal those 12 to 15 qualities but one of the key ones I believe was evident in what Dolson said in the press release when Cignetti was hired in December, 2023, is a proven head coach with a history of winning at the college level. And ideally at multiple stops. Here is an excerpt of what Dolson said.
“Curt comes to Bloomington with a highly impressive list of credentials amassed over 41 seasons in college football. That includes the last 13 seasons as a head coach, where he’s compiled a 119-35 record and never had a losing season. Most recently, he’s spent the last five seasons at James Madison University, where he’s gone 52-9 ……”
This “Production Over Potential” in my view is the #1 trait that Cignetti has in enabling his success at Indiana. He has taken over multiple programs and turned them quickly into winners because he has an established blueprint for success that he follows at each stop. Based on Cignetti’s actions that blueprint includes:
- Hiring the same coaching staff from previous stops for continuity and to more easily hit the ground running – Cignetti brought both offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan and defensive coordinator Bryant Haines with him from James Madison along with 4 other assistants and the strength coach; Shanahan and Haines coached under Cignetti at two prior stops as well.
- Adding players with proven success at the college level vs. just potential – at the end of 2023 thirty-eight players left Indiana and Cignetti replaced them with 30 transfers including 13 from James Madison and 14 players overall who had at least all-conference honorable mentions on their college resumes. The level the players played at didn’t matter as much as proven success on the field.
- Establishing a winning culture by not setting limits on the program – Cignetti has been bold in his proclamations to break the idea you can’t win big at Indiana. You have to believe and set high expectations. And bringing in the James Madison transfers has helped that cultural shift in thinking along with the proof of prior success and confidence that Cignetti brings.
The fact Cignetti’s success was mostly at lower levels of college football thankfully did not matter to Dolson. Including Indiana here are the turnarounds Cignetti has achieved:
- Indiana – Pre-Cignetti: Big Ten worst 9-27 record over 3 years; Post-Cignetti: 6-0 record
- James Madison – Pre-Cignetti: successful Division 1 level program; Post Cignetti: 52-9 over 5 years including JMU’s successful entry to FCS level in 2022 with 8-3 record and 11-1 finish in 2023 (2019 to 2023)
- Elon – Pre-Cignetti: 9-37 over 4 years; Post Cignetti – 14-9 over 2 years (2017 to 2018)
- Indiana University of Pennsylvania – Pre-Cignetti: 11-11 over 2 years; Post Cignetti: 53-17 over 6 years (2011 to 2016)
Cignetti also has lots of relevant assistant coaching experience dating back to 1983 including serving under Nick Saban at Alabama as his wide receivers coach and recruiting coordinator. Plus, his father was a long-time successful college coach. All this experience has been leveraged for the established blueprint that Cignetti has parlayed into an overall 119-35 head coaching record.
Indiana’s realization of the importance of football to the overall athletic department has been vital as well. By some estimates, football can bring in 80% of the revenue in most Division 1 athletic departments so a successful football team is the key to a healthy athletic department since it helps fund all program sports.
The Indianapolis star newspaper had reported that Cignetti was supported with a much more aggressive NIL (name, image and likeness) fund of over $3 million that has been key in allowing him to bring in so many proven transfers. The poster child for this is former Ohio quarterback and Senior transfer Kurtis Roarke who has played at an All-Conference level for Indiana averaging 292 passing yards/game with 14 touchdowns and just 2 interceptions.
For the year, Rourke has the second best QBR of all FBS quarterbacks at 91.9 and has been key to Indiana’s number one rated offense at 516 average yards/game in the Big Ten that statistically is even better than #2 nationally ranked Ohio State.
The philosophy of going with Production over Potential is strongly differentiated from hiring the “hot coordinator” who does not have an established winning blueprint and in fact has to hire an all-new staff and hope they quickly sync together to establish a culture and identity for their new program. Indiana had tried that before with several coaches with middling success like Cam Cameron, Kevin Wilson and Tom Allen.
The coach most similar to Cignetti who achieved the most success since the last 1960’s for Indiana was Bill Mallory. He is the programs all-time most winning coach and was there from 1984 through 1996 and had a 68-78-3 overall record including 2-4 in bowl games across his 13 seasons. Mallory had IU ranked in six of his seasons after having proven success in three other head coaching jobs including Miami (OH), Colorado, and Northern Illinois where he had a combined record of 99-52-1.
The hot coordinator strategy can still work but is much riskier since an established coach can bring his staff from his prior stops and hit the ground running as all the coaches are in sync vs. a first-time coach who has to put together a staff for the first time slowing down the entire process. All this is key part of Cignetti’s successful blueprint.
It’s not ironic that the two teams struggling the most in the Big Ten right now are 1-4 Purdue, who hired Ryan Walters as coach who was the hot Defensive Coordinator on Bret Bielema’s Illinois staff, and 1-4 UCLA’s DeShawn Foster who is in his first year but never even was a coordinator but served as Chip Kelly’s running backs coach at UCLA.
They are learning the hard way it’s better to put Production over Potential.
Week 6 Big Ten Football Top Storylines – Big Jeff’s Football (bigjeffsfootball.com)
