Kurt Cignetti knows victory. No matter where he ends up, be it James Madison or the Division II IUP Crimson Hawks, success follows. Since taking over the program, Cignetti has never had a losing season.
When Indiana hired him in November 2023, the Hoosiers were the most losing team in college football history and finished the season with a 3-9 record under Tom Allen.
It was not a work in progress, the Hoosiers football program needed to be rebuilt.
On New Year's Day, Indiana will face Alabama in the long-awaited Rose Bowl match. The Crimson Tide have a rich postseason history and championship tradition, but the Hoosiers are the favorite to win.
This 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 Heisman-winning quarterback Fernando Mendoza.
“When he talks, it means something,” Indiana linebacker Isaiah Jones said.
“He won't talk you up, tell you what you want to hear, he'll tell you what you need to hear, and that's what makes him such a special coach.”
That tough love is reflected throughout the team, Jones said. Whether it's a fifth-string linebacker or a starting linebacker, Cignetti and his staff coach everyone the same. This is one of the reasons why players trust him and share his philosophy.
“All coaches want to see you be the best version of yourself,” Jones said. “But you can’t do that if you sugarcoat it.”
Sinetti's coaching style transformed a starting lineup filled with easy-to-recruit players rather than five-star prospects into the number one team in the country.
Their surprise appearance on college football's biggest stage galvanized the Hoosiers.
Indiana quarterback D'Angelo Ponds answers questions during the new Rose Bowl conference on Tuesday.
(Marcio Jose Sanchez/The Associated Press)
“It's definitely a chip on our shoulder,” Indiana guard D'Angelo Ponds said. “Just to prove to the coaches that they missed an opportunity with us.”
Hoosiers I had the last three weeks of vacationearning a first-round berth into the College Football Playoff. Heading into the quarterfinal showdown with Alabama in Pasadena, before their opponent was even known, Cignetti made it his mission to focus on how the Hoosiers can produce the best offense and defense in the country. He wanted the players to focus on their job and not who they would play.
“Every step of the way, in every aspect of training and preparation, we strive to be the best version of ourselves, not our opponent,” Indiana linebacker Aiden Fisher said.
But once Alabama earned a berth in the Rose Bowl, the preparations changed.
“Once we realized who the enemy was, we took it up a notch,” Fisher said. “[Cignetti’s] have done a great job of blocking out the noise, we really don't hear anything in the media.”
He wants his team to be present during preparation, never taking a single day for granted and getting their body and mindset in order.
“He always says late in the season it's all about who's ready to go, who's most prepared,” Indiana center Pat Coogan said.
The team's success began with his recruitment. No matter which players leave or enter the locker room, Cignetti makes sure everyone is focused on the same end goal: winning.
“We’re all cut from the same cloth,” Coogan said. “That’s why I think this locker room is so good at coming together and that’s why we’ve been successful no matter how many people have transferred.”
Fans who fly into Pasadena talk about ghosts from the past, Fisher said. The last time the Hoosiers appeared in the Rose Bowl was in 1968, when they lost USC. A win on New Year's Day will help strengthen the football culture in Indiana, but the team knows it needs to focus on Thursday's game against Alabama and ignore the bigger picture.
“I am honored and privileged to play in the Rose Bowl,” Fisher said. “But we're still playing four-quarter football and we need to go out and win.”
