Curt Cignetti, Indiana football are center of attention again

Indiana is the center of attention in the college football world. Again. And it’s only July.

A single game hasn’t been played, but Curt Cignetti and the Hoosiers are ruffling feathers once more, becoming quite possibly the hottest topic in college football.

This comes days after Indiana’s appearance at Big Ten Media Days in Las Vegas, where Cignetti was his usual brash self during his media sessions. Cignetti knows how to stir up a crowd, and he’s done it once more, this time over a month before the 2025 season begins.

Indiana’s presence at Media Days began with Cignetti giving an opening statement at the main podium. Most of his monologue included his expectations for his team’s season, but it also included what could be considered a follow-up to his most notable comment from last year’s Media Days.

“Year one is in the books. One hundred twenty-six years of Indiana football. Best season in Indiana history. No. 1 out of 126,” Cignetti said in his opening statement.

Cignetti may seem like he’s simply complimenting his coaching staff and players, but he may have been backing up what he said during Media Days in 2024.

Last year in Indianapolis, Cignetti said: “Now, I can tell you, normally at these things I stand up here and we’re picked to win the league. It’s just usually how it’s been. I have been picked next to last twice, which—we were picked 17th out of an 18-team league, and I get it. The two times we were picked next to last, in 2022, we won the conference championship, and in 2017 we inherited an 8-45 team and won eight in a row and played the last game of the year for the conference championship.”

He followed that up with: “Now, I’m not into making predictions, that’s just a historical fact.”

Cignetti’s bold statement ended up being true. The Hoosiers were in contention for the Big Ten championship during the final week of the season and certainly didn’t finish 17th in the league.

Even though his comments held true throughout the season, the talking heads of college football don’t seem to be giving Cignetti the benefit of the doubt for some of his statements during this year’s Media Days.

ON3+: Takeaways from Curt Cignetti’s Big Ten Football Media Days podium appearance

After his podium appearance, Cignetti went on Big Ten Network to do a segment with their panelists, something that every coach participated in throughout the week.

What every other coach didn’t do is mention that what gives them the most satisfaction as a coach is “beating somebody’s ass,” and that shifted the attention right to Cignetti.

Many were put off by the comment because Cignetti doesn’t hesitate to say something brash instead of remaining cliché. While it’s certainly unconventional, it fires up Hoosier fans, and that’s exactly what he sets out to do every time he gets handed a microphone.

His comment on BTN also draws comparisons to another one of Cignetti’s one-liners from a year ago.

He said that “We’re just going into an old stadium to kick somebody’s ass” when talking about playing at the Rose Bowl, which again angered a contingent of fans and media alike.

Of course, Cignetti and IU beat UCLA handily, as they did with almost every one of the 11 opponents they defeated.

While the Hoosiers backed up every bit of Cignetti’s words throughout the 2024 season, people throughout the country still couldn’t handle what Cignetti had to say this time around. But that obviously didn’t stop him from joining in on the most heated debate in all of college football: the Big Ten vs. the SEC.

That’s what most of this discourse is about, as SEC fans and media can’t handle—or, I suppose, can’t conceptualize—that there’s a historically awful program rising to prominence due to the new playoff model.

In response to this, the SEC somehow believes that teams like Indiana need to play a gauntlet of a schedule to earn a playoff spot, as there were some clamoring for 9-3 South Carolina or 9-3 Alabama to be put in over 11-1 Indiana.

Cignetti got a chance to comment on this, and he didn’t disappoint.

“Twelve of the 16 SEC teams play three G5 or an FCS game. Twelve of those teams play 36 games, 29 G5 games and seven FCS games, and one less conference game,” he explained.

ON3 NATIONAL: Indiana’s schedule sparked a playoff debate, now Curt Cignetti is fanning the flames

Because of these numbers, Cignetti said that his team “would just adopt SEC scheduling philosophy,” and that was evident by his canceling of a home-and-home series with Virginia.

“Some people don’t like it. I’m more focused on those nine conference games. Not only do we want to play nine conference games, okay, and have the four-four championship—the playoff format, we want to have play-in games to decide who plays in those playoffs,” Cignetti explained.

Not only did Cignetti attack the SEC’s scheduling argument, but he also took a shot at how his conference counterpart wants to sort out the playoff. Cignetti prefers a model where the top two finishers in conference standings automatically get in, while the No. 3 finisher plays the No. 6 and so does the No. 4 and No. 5.

Both the Big Ten and SEC would be set up this way, but the folks down South prefer a model where the selection committee gets to decide the playoff participants aside from the five conference champions.

What people seem to forget is that what makes college football great is competition, not debating over whose résumé is better. Cignetti and Indiana understand that, as they’re not there to debate, but rather compete at the highest level.

Cignetti may seem like he’s trying to ruffle feathers for the sake of it, but that couldn’t be further from the case. He’s trying to fire up his players and his fans while bringing his program to the forefront of the college football world.

He’s certainly done that, as you can’t go one scroll on social media without seeing someone post about Indiana football.

It didn’t used to be that way, but Curt Cignetti has made it happen.

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