Curt Cignetti calls out 'great divide' in college football media coverage

Curt Cignetti is arguably the hottest name in college football right now — especially when it comes to the annual coaching carousel — amid a second-consecutive undefeated start halfway through his second season at Indiana. But it wasn’t until after last Saturday’s 30-20 road win over Oregon that the Hoosiers finally received their flowers by climbing to No. 3 in this week’s AP Top 25 poll.

It is Indiana’s highest ranking ever, and establishes the Hoosiers (6-0, 3-0 B10) as not just a serious challenger in the Big Ten but also a legitimate contender for this season’s College Football Playoff national championship. Of course, while a Top 5 national ranking might be new, Cignetti has been here before after opening his Indiana tenure with 10 straight wins last season before succumbing to eventual national champion Ohio State in Week 11.

Following that setback, a one-loss Indiana, controversially to some, backed into the 2024 College Football Playoff’s 12-team field as the No. 10 seed before losing 27-17 to eventual national runner-up Notre Dame in the opening round. And while there’s still about two months left of the regular season, it’s a safe bet Cignetti’s Hoosiers will garner much more respect from the CFP selection committee this time around.

During a recent appearance on The Joel Klatt Show podcast, Cignetti reflected about how Indiana went from self-described “media darling” to a CFP pariah before opening this year as a relative national afterthought with a No. 20 preseason ranking.

“Well I think, last year, we were kind of the media darling until the Playoff rankings started to come out, around Week 9 or 10, whenever that was. And let’s face it, I was kind of out there last year too publicly,” Cignetti told Klatt. “When I got the job here, Day 1 there were a lot of things that kind of rubbed me the wrong way, (just based on) the vibe I was getting, just the general reaction to football. (So) I sort of had to be out there a little bit, and I made some comments that were, let’s face it, a little out of character for me. But I thought that’s what this program needed, someone to kind of carry the flag, lead the charge, and create the vision. You know, (show we’re) not afraid of the big boys.

“And I feel like we established ourselves last year, and this year can just sort of focus on coaching football and the process of coaching football,” Cignetti continued. “So I think a lot of people were maybe a little down on us going into the year because of the way we played against Ohio State and Notre Dame.”

The 64-year-old Cignetti then turned his critique to the national media at large, calling out the “great divide” that has developed due to a regional tribalism that he attributes to major TV networks becoming financially entangled with individual Power Four conferences.

“And let’s face it, college athletics and college football has really changed a lot in the last 5, 10, 15 years and there’s a division, there’s no doubt about it, in the media,” Cignetti added. “A lot of it is tied into whatever TV network is covering which conference, and then you’re going to have sports writers that support those schools and are against the other schools. So there’s definitely a great divide.”

Divide or not, Cignetti’s Hoosiers have made true believers out of the rest of the college football world following another dominating start on the gridiron.