IUFB Offseason Updates

[IUFootballHappyHappyJoyJoy]

Purists may not have liked the idea of a mascot but numerous restaurants in Bloomington would beg to differ.

[Hurryin' Hoosiers]

given the recent debate on winner of 1 gorilla vs 100 humans....

how many boilermakers would it take to beat a bison?

[Lebowski]

https://www.on3.com/teams/indiana-hoosiers/news/biggest-improvement-for-indiana-football-this-offseason-its-offensive-line-says-opposing-big-ten-coach/

[Pagoda]

Nate Tice sure likes Mendoza — sees him as a top QB in the draft.  A detailed breakdown on why in this article:

https://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/article/nfl-draft-qb1-at-this-early-stage-is-indianas-yes-indianas-fernando-mendoza-who-has-a-world-of-potential-222731089.html

[Dave from Dayton]

On 5/23/2025 at 7:10 PM, Pagoda said:

Nate Tice sure likes Mendoza — sees him as a top QB in the draft.  A detailed breakdown on why in this article:

https://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/article/nfl-draft-qb1-at-this-early-stage-is-indianas-yes-indianas-fernando-mendoza-who-has-a-world-of-potential-222731089.html

Now that was a fun and inciteful read about Mendoza.  Thanks for the link!  

[Brass Cannon]

I hope the season isn’t in jeopardy starting to see ads for toilet paper again on Facebook. Reminds me of the pandemic 

 

[Class of '66 Old Fart]

https://www.thedailyhoosier.com/from-neglect-to-real-commitment-ius-investment-in-football-making-major-impact/

[Pagoda]

Our logo made the cover of the CFB ‘26 video game.  It’s a little thing, but kids see it and all the little things add up as IUFB changes its perception.

[Hovadipo]

Bucket Game on the night of Black Friday on NBC. That is wickedly cool. 

That gives us two Friday night games with the other coming against ISU in September. Open with Old Dominion at 2:30 and Kennesaw State the week after at noon. 

[Lebowski]

 

This will get Coach Cig to leave for greener pastures. Believe me, it will. Especially if he was promised this kind of poop wouldn't happen to him. 

As an IUFB first and IUBB second fan, it irks me a little bit that this is something Coach Cig is facing. He's the best thing the IU athletic department has had since RMK and the toxic fanbase/donors is going to screw this up because they would rather hire a new basketball coach every time they lose a game. 

Dolson needs to get his sh!t together and understand football should be the priority if we want to survive this wild wild west known as NIL. 

[Jeff Flabjohns]

There’s enough money for all. 
Athletic Department already ponied up for Cig and assistant salaries…putting em near the top of the country. 
I’d imagine IUFB roster is in the top half of a LOADED football conference in spending on player compensation (likely equates to top 25 nationally)…which is a massive investment for this school. Continue to win and there will be even more to dispense. 

Cig ain’t going anywhere 

[Lebowski]

9 minutes ago, Jeff Flabjohns said:

There’s enough money for all. 
Athletic Department already ponied up for Cig and assistant salaries…putting em near the top of the country. 
I’d imagine IUFB roster is in the top half of a LOADED football conference in spending on player compensation (likely equates to top 25 nationally)…which is a massive investment for this school. Continue to win and there will be even more to dispense. 

Cig ain’t going anywhere 

There wasn't enough money. Listen to his words not how he delivered them. He wanted to add more to his roster but was cut off due to a roster overhaul in the basketball program. He wants to win a CFP Championship. He'll jump ship in a heartbeat if this is a continued problem for him. And don't think any school in the country won't want to hire him after the season he had last year. Again, if he was promised this kind of poop wouldn't happen to him he'll leave on his own terms. I would leave my job as well if I was promised one thing and was given the bait and switch. Dolson needs to figure this out, quick.

[HoosierX]

51 minutes ago, Lebowski said:

 

This will get Coach Cig to leave for greener pastures. Believe me, it will. Especially if he was promised this kind of poop wouldn't happen to him. 

As an IUFB first and IUBB second fan, it irks me a little bit that this is something Coach Cig is facing. He's the best thing the IU athletic department has had since RMK and the toxic fanbase/donors is going to screw this up because they would rather hire a new basketball coach every time they lose a game. 

Dolson needs to get his sh!t together and understand football should be the priority if we want to survive this wild wild west known as NIL. 

I do think that this being Devries first year and having to replace a whole team maybe got him a bit bigger slice of the pie than he might have otherwise. But if I'm Dolson, I'm telling Cignetti that in the future it will be allocated based on who is proving they can get bang for the buck. You can pay $2.8M for Lamar Wilkerson, but he better be a stud.

[Lebowski]

9 minutes ago, HoosierX said:

I do think that this being Devries first year and having to replace a whole team maybe got him a bit bigger slice of the pie than he might have otherwise. But if I'm Dolson, I'm telling Cignetti that in the future it will be allocated based on who is proving they can get bang for the buck. You can pay $2.8M for Lamar Wilkerson, but he better be a stud.

If I'm Dolson, I'm looking at my revenue for the entire department and making sure the top generator is being fed first and foremost.  Otherwise I might lose my job. Especially with the lack of rules set in place for the current environment.

And if I'm Coach Cig and hearing what you're telling me, I'm upset and looking elsewhere. 

We need to fully understand and start thinking first and foremost, football. Period. 

[Pagoda]

Wait a minute here.  I think some facts are being missed.  And bear with me, some of these numbers are best estimates from what I hear from media and AD folks.

1) First off, Pat is misinterpreting that comment.  That's mostly a joke.  If you listen to Cig's other interviews, he thanks the donors and Scott and Pam and says "our pot of money is nice."  I'm sure he wants more money, but I don't think it's an issue right now.

2) Here's the trend in IUFB NIL/rev share for players and money for staff, which is important to keep in mind.

End of Allen Tenure - $2M NIL.  Grim!  Our staff budget wasn't great either.
Cig Year 1 -  We promised Cig $3M NIL and he got ~$4.5M.  He was very happy.  We were only 20-30% of the big programs last year who had $16-20M NIL.
Cig Year 2 - With the rev share, we are about $22-23M (something like ~$16M rev share and $6-7M NIL).  He's getting the bulk of the rev share like most P4 schools and our NIL is up again quite a bit in Year 2.  The big programs are $35-40M total.  We are now  55-60% of the big programs, which is a big improvement from last year.  I'd guess we are around #25 in the nation for player payroll -- just an estimate.  Maybe as good as #20.

Also, we gave Cig a significant increase in staff budget, $11M is now top-5 in the country which is amazing.  And Cig himself more or less doubled his comp and is now a borderline top-10 paid coach making about $9M+ after incentives/bonuses.

IU's commitment to football is good.  The progress in 1.5 years is immense. 

3) Basketball NIL went from ~$6M last year to what looks like ~$7M NIL + ~$3M rev share this year.  We increased NIL for bball, but not a lot.  Cig can't be surprised at NIL levels for bball at IU.

So, overall, I don't think Cig can complain too much right now, and I don't think he is.  I'm not seeing false promises or a bait and switch.  HOWEVER, we have to keep improving each year, or else it could become an issue.

On the money point, unfortunately I think we need more for football, and basketball, but let's focus on football.  Ideally we would have $10M more per year for football payroll, which would get us to 75-80% of the big programs.  That's about as good as we could do, we will never match OSU, Texas, UGA, etc., they're just way bigger.  I think Scott has to keep engaging new donors and sponsors and next year find a way to increase our player payroll $3M+ so we can keep the improvement going and keep chipping away at the bigger football programs.  And Cig has to continue to deliver with the resources we are giving him.  Tough job, but that's what it takes to be good in the hyper competitive world of CFB.

So, what I'm saying is from what I can tell today, things are really pretty good.  I'm not seeing or hearing about an issue with IUFB funding -- we'll see if anything else comes up. 

[Lebowski]

@Pagoda 

I 100% agree priority is in the right direction.

I don't think Pat is misinterpreting his comments. Pat most likely has a really good inside on these kinds of things and is probably hit up by WVU for NIL on a regular basis. Coach Cig will always thank the donors. It would be foolish not to. He's in the middle of the hornets' nest of donors when asked the question for crying out loud. Listen to his words not how it was delivered. 

Whenever I see NIL estimates like yours I typically take it with a grain of salt because, and I think you can fully admit it as well, we just don't fully know the numbers. I'm not saying they are wrong, I'm just saying I am skeptical about the actually figures. Also, I appreciate you sharing them with me. 

Bottom line, Coach Cig made a comment that is concerning for me and I am taking him at his word. 

[Pagoda]

18 minutes ago, Lebowski said:

@Pagoda 

I 100% agree priority is in the right direction.

I don't think Pat is misinterpreting his comments. Pat most likely has a really good inside on these kinds of things and is probably hit up by WVU for NIL on a regular basis. Coach Cig will always thank the donors. It would be foolish not to. He's in the middle of the hornets' nest of donors when asked the question for crying out loud. Listen to his words not how it was delivered. 

Whenever I see NIL estimates like yours I typically take it with a grain of salt because, and I think you can fully admit it as well, we just don't fully know the numbers. I'm not saying they are wrong, I'm just saying I am skeptical about the actually figures. Also, I appreciate you sharing them with me. 

Bottom line, Coach Cig made a comment that is concerning for me and I am taking him at his word. 

As for the NIL/rev share estimates, Allen and Year 1 Cig are from the IndyStar/Herald Times folks, so I feel pretty good about those.  Year 2 Cig is from Cig himself in an interview/article and corroborated by someone at our collective.  I think I'm directionally right from pretty good sources, but you can take it or leave it.

I interpret his comment differently -- he's a sarcastic dry humor guy.  And I'm sure he wants more money, every coach does except the ones at Texas, OSU, Oregon, and Georgia (maybe TAMU?).  But, again, no big deal if you see it differently, at the end of the day we're both IU fans I'm not here to fight.  Maybe I am wrong!

I'm pretty thrilled with IUFB right now.  But I am worried about money -- mostly about how much more we can raise.  Our athletic dept is stretched right now -- we've had layoffs, a $25M "loan" from IU to the athletic dept, and a huge increase in player costs with rev share and NIL.  Media rights will help, but we're still a smallish-athletic dept for the P2 schools.  We need to keep getting our alumni/fans engaged, maybe get a big sponsor like Lilly, or maybe further engage one of our whales like Cuban.  Easy for me to say, I'm not the one doing the fundraising. And sadly, I am not billionaire that can materially chip in.

[Lebowski]

@Pagoda 
 

 

[Lebowski]

The Nandolarion

 

[Hovadipo]

1 hour ago, Lebowski said:

Bottom line, Coach Cig made a comment that is concerning for me and I am taking him at his word. 

This is really what it comes down to. I don't necessarily take his comments at face value. He likes to play around and I'm not sure that he's one to publicly ruffle feathers within the AD/donor pool like that. But if this actually is him making a funny statement that isn't intended to be all that funny - and to be clear I can certainly see why you'd think that - then we definitely have reason for concern.