Curt Cignetti's New Contract is More Proof of Football Culture Change at IU
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Written by Alec Keezer
Scott Dolson & Pam Whitten, take a bow.
The Indiana Hoosiers have extended Head Coach Curt Cignetti through 2032.
Curt Cignetti will likely retire as an Indiana Hoosier.
The deal will make Coach Cig one of the highest paid coaches in the country.
At a base of $8 Million, Cig will become the 16th highest paid coach in the country. That doesn’t include the $1 Million retention bonus throughout the lifetime of the contract, or the pool of money allocated towards keeping his staff, which has been integral to his success. From what we know of Cignetti and his “old” Indiana contract, he’s going to take great care of his assistants. Those details in the new contract weren’t immediately available, however ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg noted the increase to the salary pool for the staff would be “significant”. Cignetti will also become the highest paid public employee in the great state of INDIANA when the extension kicks in.
Why is Indiana extending its head football coach 10 games into his first season?
If you have to ask, you clearly have not been paying attention to what’s going on here.
Allow me to fill you in.
Curt Cignetti was announced as the new Head Coach of the Indiana Hoosiers in late November of last season. The team was coming off a putrid 3-9 season and damn near the entire roster was in the portal.
Cignetti walked into a fanbase on life-support. To be completely honest, I’m not sure most of the fanbase had a pulse. We were hanging on by a thread.
Cig recognized this too.
His opening presser set stage for what was to come.
“We’re going to change the culture, the mindset, the expectation level, and improve the brand of Indiana Hoosier Football. There will be no self-imposed limitations on what we can accomplish.”
(The line gives me chills. It's the opening to my podcast, Cigs Inside: An Indiana Football Podcast)
“Change the culture, mindset, expectation level, and improve the brand of Indiana Hoosier football” is exactly what Cignetti has done.
Within a month of taking the job, Cig and staff completely flipped the roster. 38 guys out, 31 guys in. A completely different team.
When asked how he sells his vision, the response was cool, calm, and collected:
“It’s pretty simple, I win, Google me.”
Win he has.
Indiana has basically buried everyone.
A 31-7 season opening win against FIU would prove to be the black sheep game in the Hoosiers season. We got some incredible Cignetti faces and saw our first glimpse of what Cignetti’s standard actually is when we watched him stalk the sideline, borderline livid with his teams’ execution up 24 points in the 4th quarter.
Poor Western Illinois stood no chance. They got ran out of Bloomington by 70+.
Next was a road matchup with UCLA, or as you may recall, “a trip to an old stadium to kick someone’s ass.”
The Hoosiers did just that.
The Charlotte game was a waxing, a nice, clean 52-14 victory.
Maryland thought they had a shot, they didn’t even come close. The Hoosiers whooped them 42-28.
Northwestern was next, the Hoosiers took care of them too, 41-24. This time, with the beautiful Lake Michigan in the backdrop. The Hoosiers became the first team in America to go bowling. They entered the bye week 6-0.
The bye week had Nebraska woofing.
They found out real quick they were barking up the wrong tree, the Hoosiers shucked them 56-7.
The Hoosiers rolled into a home matchup with Washington looking to go 8-0 facing the most adversity they faced all year with College GameDay in Bloomington for the first time. The atmosphere was ELECTRIC. Backup QB Tayven Jackson didn’t blink. He stepped up beautifully in place of the injured Heisman candidate Kurtis Rourke and led the Hoosiers to a 31-17 victory to go 8-0 for just the second time since 1987.
Michigan State thought they had the answers. They jumped out to a quick 10-0 lead over the Hoosiers, who trailed for the first time in a game all season. The returning Rourke led the Hoosiers to 47-10 boat racing of the Spartans for the Hoosiers to reach 9-0 for the first time in school history.
Last week, Indiana played its worst game of the season and beat the defending National Champions to become 10-0 for the first time in school history.
Beating Michigan was the first step in Coach Cig’s famed “Purdue Sucks!” Prophecy from Assembly Hall last December.
The Hoosiers now find themselves ranked #5 in the country and are lining up for a Top 5 road matchup in the Horseshoe against Ohio State.
Cignetti and the Hoosiers are not just winning on the field, they’re winning on the recruiting trail as well.
I watched Warren Central Edge Tyrone Burrus commit to Louisville on Instagram Live back over the summer. Burrus flipped his commitment to the Hoosiers after the Michigan game last week. Defensive line coaches Buddha Williams and Pat Kuntz were instrumental in securing Burrus’ commitment.
I also haven’t been shy about how much of a fan I am of St. Frances Academy defensive back Byron Baldwin Jr. The now two time Indiana commit locked back in with the Hoosiers this past Friday after a strong push from Deion Sanders and Colorado. Coach Ola Adams was huge in his initial recruitment, but the class that Coach Adams and Coach Rod Ojong helped put together ended up being the deciding factor when Baldwin ultimately decided on the Hoosiers.
With Burrus and Baldwin, the Hoosiers strengthen an already highly impactful class of 2025.
The Hoosiers are also trending for multiple high level recruits for the class of 2026 and beyond.
The momentum they’re building is strong.
So what does this all mean for the future of Indiana Football?
Curt Cignetti said it himself on Big Noon Kickoff:
Curt Cignetti wins. He has proven it over and over and over again.
I’ve said this for years, if IU ever cared enough about football they could be a player in the national conversation. There’s too much money and intelligence associated with the university to not have at least a competitive football team.
Lo and behold what happens when you hire the right coach. It changes everything.
We got glimpses of it with Tom Allen, but those felt like surprises. They felt like fairy tales.
This is different. This feels sustainable.
The only thing that could derail the momentum and the program Curt Cignetti has built in his short time at Indiana was Coach Cig walking out the door for a “better” opportunity. The reality is based on the NIL base and the fanbase there shouldn’t ever be a better opportunity than Indiana.
Scott Dolson and Pam Whitten made sure there wasn’t a better opportunity.
The university deserves so much credit here.
There would have been qualms, but a majority of the fanbase would’ve slept through another year of Tom Allen, especially given how good the basketball team looks to start this year. Nine weeks to see other people’s backups before turning off football for the year.
The university recognized it was behind the 8-ball when it came to football infrastructure, and the expanded playoff and expanded B1G conference provided a golden opportunity for movement.
Chaos is a ladder.
The Hoosiers struck gold in hiring Cignetti. They positioned themselves perfectly to move up the ladder.
Will they beat Ohio State this weekend?
Honestly, yes, I believe they will.
Does it really matter in the grand scheme?
No, the Indiana Hoosiers are a legitimate football program now.
I feel it in the streets.
I can talk to Ohio State fans and Michigan fans and Alabama fans and they show my program respect instead of laughing in my face.
You can feel it when you watch College GameDay and Big Noon Kickoff and the CBS feature pieces and the NBC features and the Edward Koton edits.
These aren’t just fleeting moments. This is the start of what will become standard around Bloomington.
Football matters in Bloomington, Indiana. Trying explaining that to someone 13 months ago, or even 13 weeks ago.
Curt Cignetti’s Hoosiers were the NEW Indiana Football. I think now it’s just Indiana Football.
Curt Cignetti and the Indiana Hoosiers are here to stay.