Mark Ingram encourages Penn State to give 'everything I got' to hire Curt Cignetti

There is no job open in the college football world more interesting than the open Penn State Nittany Lions job. There is a bevy of qualified options out there, but the expectation is that Penn State wants to make a splash hire. The question is now who that hire is going to be.
The open job came up during a conversation on The Triple Option. While co-hosts Mark Ingram, Urban Meyer, and Rob Stone were debating the job, it was mentioned that AD Pat Kraft went to Indiana. Naturally, that prompted Ingram to emphasize that current Hoosiers head coach Curt Cignetti should be the top target.
“If I’m Penn State, I’m opening everything I’ve got to go get Cig” Ingram said. “I ain’t even going to lie to you. You get to hurt a team in the Big Ten.”
Cignetti is a Pennsylvania native who played for West Virginia. With a coaching career that began in 1983, he earned his first head coaching job at IUP in 2011. He’d have later stops at Elon and James Madison before making it to Indiana in 2024. Immediately, he delivered the best season in program history, winning 11 games and going to the College Football Playoff. Now, he’s trying to build on that and has the Hoosiers ranked No. 3 in the AP Poll.
Within that context, Rob Stone wondered if it’s possible that Indiana could be a better job in the moment than Penn State. That was an idea that Urban Meyer quickly dismissed. However, Stone still made sure to lay out the argument.
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“I believe in my heart of hearts it is,” Stone said. “But what Coach Cig has built in Bloomington — remember when we had him on Big Noon Kickoff last year, guys? He was live, he had just signed a contract extension halfway through year one, and he said, ‘Why would I want to go anywhere? We’re the next superpower in college football.’ If he truly believes that, which I think he does, and he’s got it going, which he does, Indiana up for spots to No. 3 this week… at this moment you could make the case Indiana is a better job than Penn State, the way it is right now.”
Mark Ingram pushed back and argued that Indiana’s success is tied to Curt Cignetti. The better job, then, is still Penn State, and he should, hypothetically, be able to elevate the Nittany Lions to a higher level than he is able to the Hoosiers. It’s just a matter of getting him to Happy Valley.
“Why? Because of Curt Cignetti. It’s not because of resources,” Ingram said. “It’s not because of the school. It’s because of one man. The one man’s name is Curt Cignetti, and he’s proven he can bring his program from James Madison to Indiana. If he wants to, he can bring his program from Indiana to Penn State. He can do it.”
For the time being, Curt Cignetti is still focused on Indiana. There, he has a chance to accomplish something great this season while Penn State continues along in its coaching search.