If you don’t follow college football, you may not have heard of the best story of the season thus far; The Indiana Hoosiers.  

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When most folks hear about Indiana Hoosier sports, they normally think you’re talking about their basketball team, and usually that’s true. 

So, what makes Hoosier football the story this year? The story surrounds their first-year head coach, Curt Cignetti. He has Indiana off to a 7-0 start, the first ever at the school.  

Indiana v UCLA
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Curt Cignetti isn’t the prototypical hire. He wasn’t a young, “hotshot” coordinator at a big named power school. His path isn’t the normal path, which is the point I’m trying to make here. 

Full disclosure here, I am a big fan of Curt Cignetti. I worked with him for two years when I was broadcasting games at James Madison University in Virginia, and he became the coach in December of 2018.  

Photo Courtesy: Dave Thomas Townsquare Media
Photo Courtesy: Dave Thomas Townsquare Media
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I quickly learned Coach Cignetti was 100% a football coach. He loves to watch it, prepare for it, practice and play it and talk about it. Our weekly interviews were incredible, as far as the depths of understanding he has for the game. 

Coach Cignetti was 62 when he was hired at Indiana. He has a great resume, but that often got overlooked by schools even though he was an assistant coach at Alabama under Nick Saban and won a National Championship there.  

But he’s also coached at North Carolina State and Pittsburgh as well as stops at Rice, Temple and Davidson. 

Coach Cignetti left Alabama and took a leap of faith and became the head coach at Division II Indiana University of Pennsylvania from 2011-2016. His father, Frank, coached there for 20 years. Frank Cignetti is in the College Football Hall of Fame.   

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Then in 2017 Curt Cignetti became the head coach at Elon University, just outside of Greensboro N.C. Elon is a small, beautiful university with somewhat limited funding, and Cignetti took over a team that had been 12-45 in the five seasons prior and went 14-9. He took the Phoenix to two straight FCS playoff berths.  

Then he took over JMU, which was highly ranked in the FCS Polls and had been to two National Championships in three years, winning it in January of 2017.  

Photo Credit: Dave Thomas Townsquare Media
Photo Credit: Dave Thomas Townsquare Media
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Cignetti inherited a solid JMU program and took the program to a new level and helped The Dukes transition to become a member of the Sun Belt Conference in a move up to FBS. During his time in Virginia, 2018-2023, he went 31-4.  

I know that there was a lot to absorb there, but I needed that to make my point. Indiana had been a speedbump for most of their time in the Big 10 and is now scoring a lot of points while not giving up many. 

Indiana v UCLA
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To this point in the season, the Hoosiers are averaging 48.7 points per game while allowing only 13.7. You don’t have to be an avid sports fan to see the difference there. 

Curt Cignetti is probably the most prepared Coach I’ve ever worked with. He understands every facet that pertains to his team, but he also hires good people to oversee those areas.  

He makes his vision plain to everyone and if you don’t share the vision, it’s probably best you play or coach somewhere else.  

Coach Cignetti isn’t longwinded when he speaks and doesn’t believe in wasting time. I attended nearly every practice from beginning to end in my time at JMU, and there would be days practice would end early because the team had demonstrated they could carry out the gameplan.  

Indiana v Northwestern
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He wanted to be respectful of his players' time as well as the time of his coaches, who had families they might get a few extra minutes with at the end of the day.  

Curt Cignetti has high expectations and demands effort and attention from his staff, players and support staff. He chases perfection understanding that you can only hope to get close to it.  

He’s learned through his experiences how to evolve and get better as a coach and a person, but he has also learned to understand people and how to get the best out of them. 

Indiana v Northwestern
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Some people think he’s egotistical when he says things like “I win, Google Me”.  But look at it like this, he is in an industry where you’re trying to get the attention of 17 to 20 year old kids while you’re competing with Coaches that in some cases are half your age. Finding a way to stand out is important, especially if what you say is the truth.  

If you hire people for your company and are always thinking you need to hire a younger candidate let Curt Cignetti, be a reason to at least consider some candidates who may be older. 

And if you’re older and think that you’ll never be able to accomplish your dream because of your age, think again. Coach Curt Cignetti is a perfect example of how being prepared and believing in yourself no matter what can take you to places you can only imagine.  

It’s your time in the spotlight Coach Curt Cignetti. Enjoy it and may your success that has caught so many people by surprise this season become “the norm” for Indiana Football.  

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