Curt Cignetti knows winning. No matter where he finds himself, whether it’s James Madison or with the Division II IUP Crimson Hawks, success follows him. Since getting the opportunity to lead a program, Cignetti has never had a losing season.
When Indiana hired him in November 2023, the Hoosiers were the program with the most all-time losses in college football history, and ended the season with a 3-9 record under Tom Allen.
It wasn’t a work in progress, the Hoosiers football program needed to be rebuilt.
On New Year’s Day, Indiana will face Alabama in the highly anticipated Rose Bowl matchup. The Crimson Tide have a rich postseason history and a tradition of championships, but the Hoosiers are the favorites to win.
That is the Cignetti effect.
In two years, he transformed the program from an unranked team, spending most of its time at the bottom of the Big Ten Conference, to the No. 1 team in the country with a Heisman-winning quarterback, Fernando Mendoza.
“When he speaks, it means something,” Indiana linebacker Isaiah Jones said.
“He’s not gonna go around and hype you up, tell you something you want to hear, he’ll tell you what you need to hear and that’s what makes him so special as a coach.”
That kind of tough love echoes throughout the team, Jones said. Whether it’s the fifth-string linebacker or the starting linebacker, Cignetti and his staff coach everyone the same way. That is one of the reasons his players trust him and bought into his philosophy.
“All the coaches want to see you be the best version of yourself,” Jones said. “But you can’t do that if you’re sugarcoating it.”
Cignetti’s coaching style has turned a starting lineup that consists of more lightly recruited players than five-star prospects into the nation’s No. 1 team.
Their surprise arrival at college football’s biggest stage has fired up the Hoosiers.
“It’s definitely a chip on our shoulder,” Indiana cornerback D’Angelo Ponds said. “Just to prove to the coaches that they missed out on the opportunity with us.”
The Hoosiers had the past three weeks off, earning a first-round College Football Playoff bye. Leading up to their quarterfinal showdown with Alabama in Pasadena, before their opponent was known, Cignetti made it a point to focus on how the Hoosiers could feature the best offense and defense in the country. He wanted players to focus on their own work rather than who they would be playing.
“In every single phase, in every single facet of the way that we practice and prepare, it’s all about being the best version of us, and not so much our opponent,” Indiana linebacker Aiden Fisher said.
But as soon as Alabama clinched its ticket to the Rose Bowl, the preparation flipped.
“Once we understood who the opponent was, it just kind of upped a notch,” Fisher said. “[Cignetti’s] done a great job of blocking out the noise, we don’t hear anything in the media, really.”
He wants his team to be present during their preparation, never taking a day for granted and getting their bodies and mindset right.
“He always says, at the later points in the season, it’s about who shows up ready to play, who’s the most prepared,” Indiana center Pat Coogan said.
The success of the team started with his recruitment. Regardless of which players leave or enter the locker room, Cignetti makes sure everyone is focused on the same end goal — winning.
“We are all cut from the same cloth,” Coogan said. “That’s why I think this locker room bonds so well, and why we’ve had success, no matter how many people have transferred.”
Fans flying into Pasadena talk about the ghost of the past, Fisher said. The Hoosiers last made an appearance in the Rose Bowl in 1968 when they lost to USC. A win on New Year’s Day will help bolster the football culture in Indiana, but the team understands it needs to focus on Thursday’s game against Alabama and ignore the bigger picture.
“It’s a privilege and honor to play in the Rose Bowl,” Fisher said. “But we’re still playing a football game of four quarters that we have to go and win.”
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