Indiana Has to Avoid the ‘Rat Poison’ from the Preseason Sooner Rather Than Later

Former Alabama head coach Nick Saban made the term rat poison part of every college football fan’s vocabulary. It’s a term that refers to positive headlines about a team in the media. Current Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti, who coached under Saban, is now dealing with a rat poison issue at Indiana.

All preseason, some in the media had Indiana going 16-0 and repeating as national champions or already labeled this team as better than last year’s team. You get the picture. Cignetti addressed that on his radio show with Don Fischer on Thursday night.

“Were we reading our press clippings, best D-line in the last 20 years? You know, I mean, wow. I mean, that rat poison was strong when the Big 10 Network came in here (and said) better defense than last year, all that stuff. Right. So what it created was a great opportunity for me to send a message.” Cignetti told Fischer.

The Hoosiers did win their season opener 52-16 in a game that was never in doubt, while also moving up into the top five in both national polls, but the hunt for complacency is getting kicked into another gear.

“I was really curious to see how we would play in the opener because everybody’s saying the right thing. Yeah, there’s no complacency,” Cignetti said. “Well, it’s easy to say that and maybe you’re just looking the other way a little bit, right? You could be drinking the Kool-Aid. So there it is in black and white. This is what it was. And it gave me the opportunity to really send a couple strong messages get some of the team’s attention, individually and collectively.”

The Hoosiers play an FCS foe in Howard University on Saturday. It’s a team that IU is self-admittedly better than. IU has outscored its two previous FCS opponents 150-3 under Cignetti, but it is still a game where improvement needs to happen.

“It’s all about how we prepare Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Not only in the meeting room, but our sense of urgency, our energy, attention to detail, our execution on a practice field. Um, and then what they do on their own, right? Because at the end of the day, you’ve got to have a bunch of guys that are
accountable, that you can trust to do it right.” Cignetti said.

Only a fool would expect the 2026 Indiana team to come out of the gate clicking on all cylinders. Nobody in college football does that, not even last year’s team, who after defeating Old Dominion 27-14 had people in the media saying they would just be a 7-5 bowl team and nothing more.

One game, especially an opener, does not label a team for the rest of the season. However, there was a lot of rat poison in the preseason and with everyone trying to make a few bucks off of last year’s team, there will be more rat poison put out as the season goes on. It’s up to this team to avoid it, sooner rather than later.