BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – The most experienced coach in the College Football Playoff knows exactly who is next on the schedule.
“We were Catholic,” Indiana coach Curt Cignetti reminded CBS Sports of his humble upbringing in Pittsburgh.
That’s one hint of the next chapter of the Hoosiers’ turnaround.
When “Indiana” popped up on the TV screen as the team playing Notre Dame in the first 12-team College Football Playoff bracket there could have been an audible gasp around the Hoosier State.
This is really going to happen.
The worldwide brand in northern Indiana is forced by the CFP to meet the underling from the Big Ten. The schools separated by 200 miles and decades of tradition have met only 29 times, none since 1991. Indiana hasn’t beaten the Fighting Irish since 1950.
But in his office on Sunday, Cignetti was his usual deadpan self with the hype building around him.
“I’ve played them five times,” Cignetti said of the Irish. “Three and two.”
“Cig” is referring to his record against Notre Dame as a graduate assistant and assistant coach at Pittsburgh, Rice and NC State in a stretch that started 40 years ago.
That’s all about to change in the first game in the CFP’s 12-team era the night of Dec. 20 at Notre Dame Stadium. Indiana – 11-1, ranked No. 8 in the CFP rankings and a 10th seed in the bracket – has accomplished a lot this season, but Notre Dame is the program that comes complete with its own ghosts, legends and intimidation.
That’s where Cignetti and his Hoosiers think they’ve got this playoff thing whipped. At least on the mental side which is part of how Indiana shocked the nation this season.
“First of all we’ve got a bunch of guys who have a chip on their shoulders for a long time,” Cignetti explained in what has become a common refrain.
“Because they were good players in a G5 [conference] making all-conference wondering why they weren’t recruited by a P4 [conference].”
Cignetti already has accomplished what is arguably the best year-over-year turnaround in the history of the transfer portal. He was left with 40-odd players due to the usual attrition after a coaching change. Ten starters alone on defense left. From there he brought 31 new faces, approximately half of them from his old employer, James Madison.
“Then they picked us 17 out of 18,” Cignetti said, referring to the Big Ten preseason media poll. “Every week you had a chip.”
If you’ve been around these guys long enough, you start to figure out that playing at Notre Dame, No. 5 in the CFP rankings and the seventh-seed in the bracket, is the latest “what’s-the-big-deal?” on the calendar.
“It’s a place I haven’t played before,” Indiana quarterback Kurtis Rourke said dryly.
Cignetti has the most playoff experience of any of the 12 coaches in the field, but that label needs an asterisk. He has coached 18 postseason games in Division II and FCS from 2012-2021, taking JMU to the FCS championship game in 2019.
“The odds of us making the College Football Playoff … were pretty darn low,” Cignetti said. “The odds of us winning the next four [playoff] games are probably significantly higher than they were making the playoffs in the first place. So we’ve climbed that mountain.”
Cignetti says he has a day-by-day plan for the program from now until Jan. 20, the date of the CFP National Championship Game. Those are the kinds of things that are assumed from the likes of Georgia’s Kirby Smart. At Indiana he has a long-term plan “in my head, not on paper,” Cignetti said.
But the thought of answering that question before the season would have gotten you laughed out of the football facility. The turnaround has been so dizzying, Cignetti had to be reminded Sunday that it was 53 weeks to the day he was introduced as Indiana’s new coach.
That’s when he elbowed his way into the national consciousness telling a questioner to “Google me. I’m a winner.”
The 63-year-old has a brashness usually reserved for someone half his age.
“I really haven’t had a chance to reflect and let it all sink in,” Cignetti said. “I did walk outside my office this afternoon for about 30 seconds. I looked around the stadium and it kind of hit me, ‘Wow, we’ve accomplished a lot in the last 12 months.’
“But that’s in the past. What are you going to do now?”
Human nature would suggest that when the Hoosiers saw their name go up on the screen Sunday, the natural reaction would be to utter, “We’ve arrived.”
They have in many ways. But Notre Dame – a 7.5-point favorite — will have to prepare for Indiana as well.
“When you see your matchup and obviously we’ve gotten a lot of criticism for our schedule,” IU linebacker Aiden Fisher. “It kind of gives us more of an edge.”
Cignetti remembers Notre Dame a different way. As a teenager in Pittsburgh he watched Notre Dame highlights each Sunday.
Those were the days when there were only two or three games on network television – there was no cable – on an entire Saturday.
You held onto to those highlights like mental trading cards. Those are faded traded memories. Cignetti has the Ginsu Knives out for the Irish these days, in a football sense.
“He’s just ultraconfident in what he does …,” said Don Fischer, the play-by-play voice of the Hoosiers since 1973. “Immediately you recognize this guy knows what he’s doing.”
There are lessons to be learned. Cignetti said the Hoosiers were impacted by the crowd noise during their Nov. 23 loss at Ohio State, their lone defeat this season . While the game was competitive at halftime, pass protection became an issue for the Hoosiers. The Buckeyes had picked up on the indicator for Indiana’s silent count on offense, Cignetti said.
Playing at night in Notre Dame Stadium won’t be any easier.
The Hoosiers will get almost three weeks off from the end of the regular season to the CFP’s first game. The obligations are piling up. At the same time he is putting in the game plan and practicing, Cignetti will be evaluating players in the portal as well as welcoming others in the portal making official visits.
Losing players in the portal is a concern but not as much of one when the program is winning. His bigger concern in that regard are hovering NIL marketing agents. That’s right, these Hoosiers have become a marketable commodity.
While Indiana players wearing gold watches and driving Maybachs is hard to envision, so was going 11-1 with the hardscrabble roster Cignetti inherited.
There is more to come. Keep Googling.
“We’re a newbie to this,” Cignetti said. “Winning opens a lot of doors.”
