MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — From the moment he took over Indiana’s football program, Curt Cignetti has seemed to push exactly the right button every time.
Whether it was his brazen comments to boost the psyche of the losingest program in the history of college football or his shrewd evaluations in mining the transfer portal to overhaul the roster from a 3-9 team — plucking many of the best players from his old James Madison squad and then buying in on Cal transfer quarterback Fernando Mendoza, a two-star high school prospect who blossomed into a Heisman winner — the “I win. Google me” guy has more than backed up his bluster at every turn.
That was evident again Monday night, when his team faced a fourth-and-4 from the Miami 12-yard line with a 17-14 lead and a little over nine minutes remaining in the national title game.
Cignetti had put his field goal unit in but called a timeout to rethink it. A field goal would’ve given Indiana only a 6-point lead against a rallying opponent. A touchdown would put the Canes into a corner.
Cignetti, as usual, went on the attack.
Screw the field goal.
He wanted the touchdown.
And he got it in the most clever fashion, calling a QB draw for Mendoza, who hadn’t run the ball all night. Miami’s defensive ends had been flying upfield, but they were caught off guard, and the star quarterback creased the defense and barreled into the end zone.
“That’s all the time, man,” said Indiana defensive backs coach Ola Adams. “He trusts his instincts. He’s playing to win. You could easily go by the book and kick field goals. He goes with his gut and he’s usually right. Not too many people have the courage to make those calls and Cig does it over and over again. He is fearless. 16-0, man. It’s really unbelievable.”
It proved to be another brilliant move by the coach who has done the unthinkable, turning the biggest loser in college football history into a 16-0 national title team in just two seasons on the job with a 27-21 win over Miami.
Yes, it’s a different era of college football, with NIL money and the transfer portal and all the chaos that comes with that. It’s a more level playing field, and talent evaluation and team building matter more than ever. Along the way, Cignetti has made wise decisions in staffing moves as well.
In two years at the helm of a Power 4 program, he has proven to be the best coach in college football. Georgia’s Kirby Smart had that title until Monday night, but it’s hard to imagine he or any other coach could’ve done what Cignetti has done in Bloomington. Indiana won a total of three Big Ten games in the three years before Cignetti was hired. The program was that bad.
Right before the Playoff began, The Athletic polled some two dozen coaches asking, among other things, who the best coach in the field was. Cignetti finished second with 38 percent of the vote; Smart got 50 percent. Oregon’s Dan Lanning, whom Cignetti’s Hoosiers beat twice this season — a 30-20 win in October at Autzen Stadium and then a Peach Bowl semifinal blowout — was third with 8 percent.
“When he was talking his s—, I was like, who is this guy? But he backs it up,” said one coach. “And when you watch them on both sides, his team is seriously well-coached. I just think he’s the best coach. And I respect his path too; to leave Alabama (as an assistant) to take a small-school job is so impressive.”
It didn’t seem shocking that the guy whose team Cignetti’s just beat in the Big Ten title game, Ohio State’s Ryan Day, didn’t get a single vote — and he had just won a national title a year ago.
“Indiana’s gone to the Playoff in back-to-back years? Are you friggin’ kidding me?” said one coach who voted for Cignetti. “I know guys who used to work there. That place was a football graveyard. That place hadn’t been in the top 10 in like 100 years.” Technically, it was only 57 years, but the point remains.
The Hoosiers earned their third top-10 win of the season when they beat the Buckeyes in Indianapolis. But then they went on to blow out SEC blue blood Alabama 38-3 in the Rose Bowl, then Oregon 56-22 in a game that was over by halftime. On Monday night, they put a bow on a perfect 16-0 season, beating No. 10 seed Miami in the Hurricanes’ home stadium.
Smart won his second of back-to-back national titles in 2022, but that was in the old era of college football. Since then, his teams are an impressive 36-6, but they haven’t made it to the title game. Smart’s still a great coach, but right now, Cignetti deserves the top spot.
“I think we sent a message, first of all, to society that if you keep your nose to the grindstone and work hard and you’ve got the right people, anything’s possible,” Cignetti said. “In our particular situation in the athletic world, college football has changed quite a bit. The balance of power, also. But we have the right people on our staff, in the weight room, in the locker room, and we have great senior leadership and togetherness, and we had a really good quarterback that played his best when the chips were down.
“Are there eight first-round draft choices on this team? Probably not, no, there aren’t. But this team, the whole was greater than the sum of its parts.”
Whether the 2025 Hoosiers are the greatest team in college football history feels irrelevant to some degree. What they are is the greatest story in college football history, and Cignetti is the sport’s best coach.
