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He’s won wherever he’s been. And he likely isn’t done.
Let’s continue looking at the coaches Rutgers will face this year. The fifth game of the season brings the Hoosiers to Piscataway for Homecoming, a team previewed by Arnav the other day.
Hmmm. What can I say that hasn’t already been said about Curt Cignetti?
I could type,“Google me. I win”, and let that be the conversation. Man, did that get peoples’ attention.
Would you take that arrogant and cocky guy as your head coach? Yeah, get in line!
In two years at Indiana, Cignetti is 27-2 with a national championship. In two years! The last time the Hoosiers even won the Big Ten was in 1967….when it was still actually ten teams!
But Curt Cignetti isn’t a Johnny-come-lately. From the time he got his first head coaching job in 2011, he has never had a losing season. I’ll repeat that for the folks in the back of the room: 15 years as a head coach, never a losing season. D2 Indiana University of Pennsylvania? 53-17, three NCAA playoffs. FCS Elon? 14-9, two playoff appearances. FCS/FBS James Madison? 52-9, an NCAA Championship and two semi-final appearances.
Cignetti is the first NCAA Division I head coach to start 10–0 or better in consecutive seasons at different institutions (JMU 2023; IU2024) He’s the first NCAA Division I head coach in the CFP era (2014–present) to win 16 games in a single season (16–0).
Curt Cignetti turned 65 in early June. He is 146-37. Yeah, I know!
Catch your breath. How about Cignetti vs. Rutgers and/or Schiano? Well, in 1989, Schiano was a grad assistant at Rutgers while Cignetti was at Temple as the QB coach. Temple beat Rutgers that year, 36-33. Over the next few years, the two were on opposite sidelines as assistants; GS was working under Paterno at Penn State while Cignetti went from Temple to Pitt, working with Johnny Majors and Walt Harris for the Panthers. Hardly head-to-head competition, but they might have waved to each other during warm ups.
Worth noting: In the real world of the Big Ten era, Rutgers is 5-5 vs Indiana, last playing them in 2023, a 31-14 win. In fact, RU has topped the Hoosiers the last three times the two teams have met. Call me crazy but I’m not thinking we’re getting to that sixth win over Indiana this year.
