@snarlcakes that clip is soooooooooooooooooooooooo good. he really is amazing.
@snarlcakes wisconsin has a 80k stadium and history. iu was THE bottom of the barrel
Totally agree.
The turnaround Cignetti actually did was historic and improbable, even with the new rules. IU still has the second most losses in D1 college football history. Overcoming that kind of inertia takes a lot more than just an eye for talent and good coaching.
I want to forward this sh#t to Cig. He would be laughing in your face when you told him he couldn't be as good as Joe f#cking Tiller.
I'm not discounting how good Cignetti is. He's great. He's going to have a statue outside of Memorial Stadium that is 1,000% deserved. It's not just him; I don't think anyone would have turned around IU to the level that they're winning multiple Big Ten championships - let alone - national championships without the new rules in place.
I'd buy the argument that Cignetti is on the level of Nick Saban. I don't think even he'd win at a high level at IU under the old rules. I think he'd struggle to get to the level he was at when he coached MSU.
@snarlcakes wisconsin has a 80k stadium and history. iu was THE bottom of the barrel
Totally agree.
The turnaround Cignetti actually did was historic and improbable, even with the new rules. IU still has the second most losses in D1 college football history. Overcoming that kind of inertia takes a lot more than just an eye for talent and good coaching.
Nope. Great coaching and an eye for talent is literally all it does take. If Saban coached at IU during the 2010s you really think he wouldn't have averaged 9 wins and won at least one Big Ten title? By the way when Cig leaves IU will most likely fall off a cliff within 5 years of his departure.
If Saban coached at IU during the 2010s you really think he wouldn't have averaged 9 wins and won at least one Big Ten title?
No, I don't think he would. He wouldn't get the kind of money he was making at Alabama. And neither would his players.
Saban was 34-24-1 at Michigan State. I think he'd struggle to replicate that at IU. And why do you think he became a hall of fame, national championship coach when he went to the SEC? For any number of reasons, he had his pick of the best players year in and year out.
You did bring up a good point. It will be interesting to see what IU does post-Cignetti. I think there will be a drop off, but not a nosedive to the depths IU football used to be in.
In my opinion, Cig would have won here no matter what the circumstances… It just would have taken him an extra year to win big without NIL due to the transfer rules forcing a one year sit out… I think at least half of the 13 guys from JMU would have followed him and would have formed the core of his first group of big winners…
Remember, these were Sun Belt guys that weren’t particularly highly sought after. Few people (including myself) thought he could win in the Big Ten with them as the core of our Team. Boy was I Wrong (along with a whole lot of other people)!
In 2024 he took a MAC qb, along with a bunch of Sunbelt guys, mixed with Tom Allen holdovers and won 11 out of 13 games… To think he simply couldn’t do it with his own recruits (eventually) seems to ignore the clear evidence of the 2024 season…
@ohio-guy my guess is 7-5. 8-4. 6-6. Better results bc a better coach but the change in rules leveled the playing field overnight wiping out decades of legacies at traditional powerhouses by giving schools with deep pockets a chance
I think that's probably spot on. I also don't think Saban retiring right before the new rules took effect was a coincidence. He's a good coach, but he knew Alabama would fall back down to earth when it became legal to pay players. Alabama might still be good under him with a level playing field, but there is no way he was going to be able to dominate the way he did over the last couple of decades.
They'd be better than they are now, but definitely a step below where they were b/c he wouldn't be able to retain a roster like he did. Nick stacked recruiting classes and depth. That's much harder now with not just NIL, but the transfer portal rules.
So Cignetti isn’t on the same level as Hayden Fry or Barry Alvarez or Joe Tiller?There's no doubt a turnaround (if possible) would have taken longer under the old rules. Cigs is a master at identifying talent so if we had to rely solely on his hs recruiting, we would be looking at a 4-5 time-frame vs the 1-2 year time-frame that happened with the new rules.
Without the money on the table, no four and five star recruits would have ever considered IU football. I've always had a soft spot for IU football, but facts are facts. Cignetti could identify all the best talent all day long, getting them here without paying them would have been near impossible.
My guess is that under the old rules, Cignetti would have had a run with wins/losses similar to what @bar-down said above. Then he'd leave a be an OC/coach in waiting at a place like Alabama. Cignetti is the best NIL era coach hands down, but I don't see how he could have turned around IU without the transfer rules and NIL money. I don't see how anyone could.
Prior to Brand totally effing things up, we were winning basketball games and football games (at a lower clip than hoops, but still winning).
Why are we suddenly good at football? Pam Whitten came in and understood how important it was and would be. She empowered Dolson to go make things happen and is involved. From Brand until her, they didn't put an emphasis on it. I don't know what they actually put an emphasis on other than what some would now classify a liberal woke bullshit. 30 years of inept leadership not only killed most of our revenue sports' success, but it oversaw a decrease in academic ranking and outcome across 85-90% of the degree programs.
All this talk about the transfer portal and NIL being the only reason Cig has had success is dumb. If success was only a function of the portal and NIL, Woody would have won it all once and had 4 straight B1G championships. It's not as if every other school doesn't have access to both of those. Hopefully, DeVries gets his ish together and if he doesn't, they move on quickly and make a good hire there too.
Hope is not optimism, which expects things to turn out well, but something rooted in the conviction that there is good worth working for. - Seamus Heaney, Irish poet and likely Hoosier basketball fan.
POTFB
@hooky for sure. Institutional and cultural support are vital. But the transfer rules and the willingness of cook Wagner etc to outbid for key players is the difference. Along with a competent coach. No one will convince me otherwise.
In my opinion, Cig would have won here no matter what the circumstances… It just would have taken him an extra year to win big without NIL due to the transfer rules forcing a one year sit out… I think at least half of the 13 guys from JMU would have followed him and would have formed the core of his first group of big winners…
Remember, these were Sun Belt guys that weren’t particularly highly sought after. Few people (including myself) thought he could win in the Big Ten with them as the core of our Team. Boy was I Wrong (along with a whole lot of other people)!
In 2024 he took a MAC qb, along with a bunch of Sunbelt guys, mixed with Tom Allen holdovers and won 11 out of 13 games… To think he simply couldn’t do it with his own recruits (eventually) seems to ignore the clear evidence of the 2024 season…
Allen was reviled by a certain pathetic little scrum of losers who loved to mock his 'Love Each Other' mantra, because underlying the mantra is accepting Jesus Christ and the boundaries that come with that life.
Didn't hear much after this year's title game
following Mario Cristobal's remarks about his team 'loving each other'...
Allen was loyal to his staff, which 'proved' his approach was wrong.
Imagine....
Loving others, accountability, responsibility, boundaries, loyalty.....
All thrown at Tom Allen as criticism.....
Hypocrisy......
Why are we suddenly good at football? Pam Whitten came in and understood how important it was and would be. She empowered Dolson to go make things happen and is involved. From Brand until her, they didn't put an emphasis on it. I don't know what they actually put an emphasis on other than what some would now classify a liberal woke bullshit. 30 years of inept leadership not only killed most of our revenue sports' success, but it oversaw a decrease in academic ranking and outcome across 85-90% of the degree programs.
All this talk about the transfer portal and NIL being the only reason Cig has had success is dumb.
Spot on.
As a head coach, Cig has never had a losing season. He took two bad football programs and quickly turned them into winners. He presided over JMU's transition from FCS to FBS without missing a beat - - they immediately won in the FBS.
Northwestern, the other historically awful major college program, went from rags to riches under Gary Barnett back in the '90s. That hadn't previously happened at IU because we didn't have the right coach and sufficient support from the administration.
We were going to win under Cignetti come hell or high water. The money and portal simply accelerated the process. Those elements will also help him sustain the success.
@big-ryan I just don’t believe it. I think he would be great. Don’t get me wrong. But not top tier. We always see one or two very good G5 schools that are competitive at the p4 level. He had mature kids at jmu and was one of those teams. He brought them over and was very good. But got blasted by osu and lost to nd and wasn’t really close.
buying Mendoza etc got us to the top tier You can win with a great core group in any sport But to be top tier you need elite talent and I don’t think we can coach enough up to compete year in with nd ga bama Oregon etc much less have depth. With money we can Wagner and cook floated a boatload of cash on that roster
No. The 2025 season was the crowning achievement, but we were top tier before Mendoza, in 2024. One of just 12 teams to make the CFP. 11-2 record. The two losses were to the two teams that played for the natty. If the punter doesn’t fumble the snap against OSU, that’s a different ballgame. Playing at South Bend in bitter cold was too much for our hobbled QB Rourke who doesn’t get enough credit for an outstanding season played, FROM THE FIRST SNAP IN AUGUST TO THE LAST ONE IN THE CFP, WITH A TORN ACL.
Regarding 2025 and the overarching importance of COACHING, I’ll just say this. Wyatt -> Daley -> Ndukwe. 3*, 2*, 3*.
@ohio-guy he couldn’t cheat at MSU. At Bama it was just handled for him.