Coach Curt Cignetti to INDIANA... Forever and Ever, Amen!

[Stuhoo]

Changing the perception means?

Changing the perception.

And when the #1 national recruit retweets our offer it’s already a ‘zero effort expended win.’

[DChoosier]

9 minutes ago, Demo said:

Apparently the plan for that new NIL money is to spend literally all of it on 1 kid. 

I’m impressed that a kid with offers from FSU, FL, Bama, GA, USC, OSU, UM, LSU, ND, Oregon, etc even took the time to mention his offer from IU. LOL 

[Hovadipo]

45 minutes ago, Josh said:

Wasn't that the game where Coach Knight told him to read the article where Woody wasn't a first team all Big Ten selection and Woody responded by going ham on Illinois?  Exact definition of Bulletin Board Material?

I’m going off of Woody himself saying “I didn’t use it as motivation.” Idk what else you want lol. 

[LamarCheeks]

I like Coach Cig's bravado. 

I would guess convincing the fans and the team that IU football doesn't have to settle for mediocrity is a huge part of his blueprint. 

As a wise man once said: 90 percent of the game is half mental! 

 

[Golfman25]

4 hours ago, Lebowski said:

I'm not 100% certain, but I'm betting Coach Cig doesn't want you in his locker room with this type of mindset.  

 

"Chang the way they think." - Coach Cig

He doesn’t have to change the way I think.  I always knew Michigan and OSU sucked.  Add Purdue, u of I, iowa, Wisconsin, et. Al.   Now add USC UCLA etc.   they suck too.  

[AZ Hoosier]

2 hours ago, Hoosierfan222 said:

Not sure if it’s his fault but special teams were absolutely brutal for us this year 

As special teams coordinator, how can it not be his fault?

[AZ Hoosier]

4 hours ago, Josh said:

It is beyond ridiculous to call it a clown show, but bulletin board material is certainly real.  I question that part to call.out OSU and Mich as well.  But **** Purdoo.  They suck

Like Purdue, Michigan and tOSU don't already want to continue kicking our football butts year in and year out? No love lost here on either side... CCC is connecting with the fanbase, and I absolutely welcome it... 

[AZ Hoosier]

1 hour ago, Josh said:

Ask Woody about his 48 point game at Illinois

(I've moved on from Cig's speech, I agree it won't make a difference against Mich and OSU. Just speaking Bulletin Board Material as a VASTLY OVERRATED AND IMMATERIAL concept)

fixed it for ya.

[maharkn]

I’m impressed that a kid with offers from FSU, FL, Bama, GA, USC, OSU, UM, LSU, ND, Oregon, etc even took the time to mention his offer from IU. LOL 

Read an article that our new QB coach Tino Sunseri started building a relationship with him when he was a grad assistant at Alabama in 19-20.

 

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[DChoosier]

1 hour ago, maharkn said:

Read an article that our new QB coach Tino Sunseri started building a relationship with him when he was a grad assistant at Alabama in 19-20.

 

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That’s good but (I don’t mean to be a smart azz) I’m guessing anyone with a recruiting relationship with this kid will also have to have a seven figure bag of $$$$  to land him.

 

EDIT: who knows, if he ends up somewhere with other high end QB’s, and he doesn’t get on the field,  maybe we will be his second stop.

[JSHoosier]

12 minutes ago, DChoosier said:

That’s good but (I don’t mean to be a smart azz) I’m guessing anyone with a recruiting relationship with this kid will also have to have a seven figure bag of $$$$  to land him.

 

EDIT: who knows, if he ends up somewhere with other high end QB’s, and he doesn’t get on the field,  maybe we will be his second stop.

A certain recently fired IUFB coach just got a sizeable payday, but that'd probably be kind of awkward.

[iubb]

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[JSHoosier]

1 minute ago, iubb said:

 

 

 

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Too bad it's behind a pay wall.

[iubb]

27 minutes ago, JSHoosier said:

Too bad it's behind a pay wall.

Quote

BLOOMINGTON – The furious pace of his search for a new football coach, driven by his own self-imposed timeline, wore IU athletic director Scott Dolson down over the last week.

At one point, so tired from the relentless march of interviews, phone calls and meetings, Dolson found relief in a phone call from former IU basketball player and current trustee Quinn Buckner. "I’m not going to ask you anything about the search," Buckner said according Dolson, "I just want to make sure you’re doing OK."

But there was one moment when Dolson felt particularly energized. So enthusiastic was Indiana’s fourth-year athletic director following his first phone call with James Madison coach Curt Cignetti, Dolson hopped over from his office to tell Deputy Athletics Director Mattie White about it.

“This guy’s different,” Dolson told White. “I think he can win here.”

Thus began the process that eventually resulted in Cignetti replacing the “James Madison” in his title with “Indiana,” and culminated in a Friday news conference announcing Cignetti’s hiring as the Hoosiers’ new football coach.

“It’s a challenge that really got my juices flowing,” Cignetti told reporters. “I left a great job that I could’ve retired in, with a contract through 2030, and won a lot of football games, but sometimes you’ve got to make hard decisions in life. This was a hard decision for me.

Quote

“You’ve got to be uncomfortable to grow, and I’m too young to stop growing. This is an exciting opportunity at a prestigious university in the top conference in the country. There’s no reason why we can’t be successful, pack the stadium and be a source of pride to the entire town of Bloomington and state of Indiana.”

Quote

That, like so much else Cignetti said to Dolson through this week’s search, will have been music to the ears of an athletic director who, in his early days as a fundraising officer with IU’s Varsity Club, used to drive to golf outings with Bill Mallory.

A student manager on Bob Knight’s 1987 national championship team, Dolson knows most people attach him to IU’s basketball team first and foremost. But Dolson has fond memories of those road trips with Mallory to booster and fundraising events, picking the brain of the winningest coach in Indiana history about what it took for Mallory to build a consistent winner out of a historic also-ran.

Quote

As chair of the Big Ten’s athletics directors group, Dolson is keenly aware of the value and importance of football. At a time when so much else in his department stands on even footing or better, Dolson found himself frustrated in recent months the Hoosiers could not find a competitive level of relevance in the richest conference’s most-lucrative sport.

When he fired Tom Allen last Sunday, Dolson did so intending to find a coach he was confident held a formula similar to the one his old golfing partner used to deliver six bowl berths in eight years across the prime of his tenure in Bloomington.

“We put together a profile,” Dolson said. “What do we need right now? What is exactly what we're looking for? If this goes well, what would a coach look like? What would they be all about?”

Dolson highlighted three key areas.

First, IU wanted a coach with extensive success running his own program, with ability to recruit and develop players consistently and, perhaps most pointedly, a history of working with quarterbacks.

 

Quote

Second, the Hoosiers needed to be comfortable their choice would embrace and could thrive in the fluid and competitive NIL marketplace, name, image and likeness concerns only growing in importance in college football. Indiana’s partner collectives are prepared to arm Cignetti with $3 million-plus in NIL resources — IU needed to be sure anyone in his chair would have a clear-eyed plan for deploying them.

And lastly, Dolson wanted a winner. A coach with, as he put it, “some swagger.”

“We went quickly, Dolson said, “but we scoured the country, and fairly quickly, Curt identified himself as someone who was really different.”

The process moved as swiftly as Dolson had initially hoped.

Interest in the job exceeded Indiana’s expectations. Working with well-regarded search firm TurnkeyZRG, Dolson narrowed his focus to a list of roughly 10 coaches with whom he wanted to speak at least informally.

There were a handful of assistants among them — IndyStar understands both IU alum/Ohio State offensive coach Justin Frye and Michigan running backs coach Mike Hart got a nod — but Dolson’s focus on coaches with an established track record running their own programs never seriously wavered.

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As with any coaching search, there was a fair bit of public speculation that did not match private fact.

Toledo coach Jason Candle and former Wisconsin coach Paul Chryst emerged as serious candidates. Jon Gruden, whose support came from a small corner of the program’s booster base, was never under consideration.

Dolson began with phone calls and Zoom sitdowns, covering a lot of ground in a short space of time through more informal conversations. Cignetti began to separate himself then.

Working hand-in-hand with Indiana University President Pam Whitten — who Dolson said is available for help and guidance “anything I need, anything” — Dolson also consulted a small group of trusted confidants, across both the university and the Big Ten.

“I had her absolute, full attention,” Dolson said of Whitten. “There's absolutely no way we could have gotten this done without her.”

From those initial interviews, Dolson narrowed his focus to a small group of finalists, perhaps no more than three. Each received a much lengthier in-person interview.

Quote

 

It was through that last step Cignetti established himself as IU’s favorite. No one impressed decisionmakers more, and despite James Madison having offered him a fresh contract with improved terms before Indiana’s interest became serious, once the Hoosiers made their financial commitment — including an improved pool of money for staffing — clear, negotiations were never a major concern.

A private plane belonging to a major Indiana booster made multiple trips to the airport serving Harrisonburg, Va., on Wednesday morning and afternoon. By Wednesday night, Dolson and Whitten had arrived at a clear and present first choice.

The following afternoon, Cignetti was announced as IU’s 30^th head football coach.

“He is an excellent recruiter, player developer, certainly evaluator,” Dolson said. “And the final thing with Curt, which was really the final piece of this, is that he's the type of person that will fit here. He's a great person. He's got an incredible work ethic, and he's got high character. For us, he was a perfect fit."

 

Quote

As with any coaching change, a lot is happening in a short space of time. A lot already has.

From Sunday morning to Friday afternoon, Dolson toiled to find a man he believed could deliver the kind of success he dreams of, the level of which Indiana fans have been starved for much of the last 50 years. He went home Friday night believing he had.

During her opening remarks, Whitten repeated an answer Cignetti gave during one of their discussions. Asked how he managed to win everywhere he’d been, Cignetti answered, by waging a tenacious battle against complacency.

The answer stuck with Whitten. When she finished her remarks, Whitten closed by turning to IU’s new football coach, and telling him, “You were born to be a Hoosier, sir. Born to be a Hoosier.”

To which Cignetti, smiling, said simply: “Agreed.”

https://web.archive.org/web/20231202233123/https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/college/indiana/2023/12/01/indiana-football-how-curt-cignetti-became-the-coach-in-96-hours/71762935007/

[rcbowla]

Why would people pay the Indy Star for the same info they could get by simply watching the presser? I'm serious here, I don't think he wrote anything that wasn't covered in press conference.

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[Hoosierfan222]

37 minutes ago, rcs29 said:

Why would people pay the Indy Star for the same info they could get by simply watching the presser? I'm serious here, I don't think he wrote anything that wasn't covered in press conference.

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Same, this article was written like it was an insider take about what happened but it was mostly just taking quotes from the press conference

[maharkn]

Wasting no time getting offers out. Just offered Kai Greer 4* OL

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[8bucks]

57 minutes ago, rcs29 said:

Why would people pay the Indy Star for the same info they could get by simply watching the presser? I'm serious here, I don't think he wrote anything that wasn't covered in press conference.

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I agree. What I would love to know, but doubt Dolson would share is:

when did he decide to make a change 

who was in his initial list

when did he first start making contacts (I know we can know this but would love to know)

did Cigs turn us down only to have us come back with a better package or did he counter and he had to go work on it. 
 

these are things I thought of when I saw the title of the Indy Star article but you are right there was nothing new in it 

[RoadRage]

I bet Cig can't cheer for the team the way Tom did!

[Crimson and Cream]

15 minutes ago, RoadRage said:

I bet Cig can't cheer for the team the way Tom did!

I'd bet money he doesn't score more TD's than Tom!