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The Indiana Hoosiers are 9-0 for the first in the 100-plus-year history of their football program and look like a legitimate College Football Playoff contender under first-year head coach Curt Cignetti.
Indiana’s immediate success shouldn’t be a total surprise. Cignetti has gotten results everywhere he’s been a head coach (Google him!). But nobody expected that the Hoosiers would be this good.
That is, nobody except for Cignetti.
11 months ago, Curt Cignetti joked that his Hoosiers would play in the 2024 Big Ten Championship.
Now, that doesn’t seem so crazy. If the season ended today, they would. #iufb pic.twitter.com/EaWuhKRIOd
— Zach Browning (@ZachBrowning17) November 3, 2024
Curt Cignetti Said Indiana Hoosiers Would Make 2024 Big Ten Championship Game
After getting hired, Cignetti appeared on B1G Today on the Big Ten Network prior to the 2023 Big Ten Championship game.
While on the show, he made an incredibly bold proclomation.
“I figured I had to make this trip up here since we’ll be playing in this game next year,” he said.
At the time, most everyone laughed the comment off. After all, Indiana just finished a 3-9 season. Even with Cignetti in charge, the Hoosiers seemed overmatched in a conference with Ohio State, Michigan, Oregon, Penn State, USC and others.
But here we are. Almost one year later and there’s a very real chance that Cignetti makes good on his claim.
Indiana has gotten some help from a light schedule. And the Hoosiers still have to get through Ohio State in a couple weeks, which is a tall talk.
But the fact that it’s even a discussion is remarkable.
Cignetti’s success also stands to make him a ton of money. He signed an incentive-laden contract and has already met several of the key incentives.
At 64 years old, it’s hard to tell where Cignetti’s coaching career goes from here. Maybe he wants to finish it out in Bloomington. But if not, there’ll undoubtedly be plenty of offers for one of the most confident and successful coaches in all of college football.