2025 IUFB Season

[DChoosier]

I’m good with where we are rated. I think Texas, who is just in front of us, is overrated but aside from them being in front of us I don’t see much “why in the hell are they ranked that high”.

Pleasantly surprised we are above TT as their win at Utah was also quite impressive.

The important thing is that we are ranked in “Playoff territory” and everything will play out just fine as long as our future results are positive.  Really need to take care of Iowa.

[Dave from Dayton]

IU favored by 6.5 over Iowa in spite of being the visitor.  Ride 'em into the dust...Hoosiers!

[AZ Hoosier]

11 minutes ago, Dave from Dayton said:

IU favored by 6.5 over Iowa in spite of being the visitor.  Ride 'em into the dust...Hoosiers!

FWIW, Indiana was only a 7 point favorite over Illinois.

[steubenhoosier]

I just finished watching the game. That was a more dominating performance than any game last season 

[southsidehoosier]

 

[Home Jersey]

We're going to the playoffs again IMO

[Brass Cannon]

So I’ve been doing some thinking. 
 

We want Illinois to beat USC. 
USC to beat Michigan

Notre Dame to beat USC

Ohio State beats Michigan  

Ohio State to beat Penn State 

Oregon to beat Penn State

Then we beat Oregon.  

Then we get a crack at OSU at Lucas Oil 

[OliviaPope40]

#15

[TTT]

Pondering:  1.  Does IU coach have Professional Football aspirations?  2.  Does IU have a check ready to go to prevent a traditional historic program from taking him away?  3.  Is that even in his thought process?  4.  Make college football history at IU with a statue/stadium name/taken care of now and after coaching provided winning continues.  (sounds great for him, really). 5.  Fun times for IU football and a big help in recruiting for band, basketball men and women and other IU programs/ University image (immense value) vs IU coach risk….dealing with failure if he would leave because IU coach will end up with plenty of money/financially either way.  Conclusion:  keep him happy.  First modern IU football coach to go out with winning record…in a big way…with a great life in Bloomington.  (Best hire that solidifies Pam Whitten and Scott Dolson legacy).

[Pagoda]

4 hours ago, TTT said:

Pondering:  1.  Does IU coach have Professional Football aspirations?  2.  Does IU have a check ready to go to prevent a traditional historic program from taking him away?  3.  Is that even in his thought process?  4.  Make college football history at IU with a statue/stadium name/taken care of now and after coaching provided winning continues.  (sounds great for him, really). 5.  Fun times for IU football and a big help in recruiting for band, basketball men and women and other IU programs/ University image (immense value) vs IU coach risk….dealing with failure if he would leave because IU coach will end up with plenty of money/financially either way.  Conclusion:  keep him happy.  First modern IU football coach to go out with winning record…in a big way…with a great life in Bloomington.  (Best hire that solidifies Pam Whitten and Scott Dolson legacy).

Some of my guesses, I have no insider knowledge:

1. At his age, probably no?  CFB lifer.

2. Not sure, but I'd say yes on matching whatever someone else might pay him.  Frankly it's hard to pay him much more.  He's at $9M/yr plus bonuses after his raise last year, which is nearly top-10, and his staff is almost a blank check and definitely top-10, maybe top-5.  The staff all got raises, with Haines getting three total and Owings getting two total due to big program interest.  We've done all we can to keep his staff together.  Amazing job from Scott, Pam, and others.

I'm more worried about NIL.  Our total player payroll is around $22-23M and the big boys are $35-$40M+.  Our roster is mostly 3*'s.  Recruiting has picked up, but it's still 3* heavy.  While he gets more than I thought possible from these guys, if he feels he can't afford the athletes/raw talent he needs to beat top-10 teams, that's an issue.  If we can keep increasing our player payroll $5M or more per year until we're 75-80% of the big boy programs, he will feel the building momentum and have more of a ceiling to operate in.  Tough job for Scott but this should be his top priority.

We of course want to keep upgrading facilities, though really our facilities are "okay" and likely not a deal breaker.

3. Not sure.  He is older, his wife likes Bloomington, and changing to a mega program job, while it would bring more resources/CFB culture, also brings risks.  Right now he is big man on campus with autonomy and he has a great relationship with Scott and Pam.  This is his chance to be the all-time legacy guy of a program where he leaves and everything is named after him.  That won't happen anywhere else.

Go somewhere else and there could be a whole world of politics to deal with (sort of like our bball program), job risk (though he's a confident guy), and a need to recruit a different player/part of the country, which he has not done before.  Is that really the best fit for him?  I don't know what he thinks.

And that last part may help us on the other side too.  Larger programs see a great coach, but he's older and has never recruited 5*'s in their neck of the woods.  I'm sure they're interested, but he isn't a no-brainer ideal fit for somewhere like Florida.  The main school that worries me is somewhere like Penn State if Franklin screws up and they lose faith in him and Cig does something like win one of the games at Oregon or PSU this year.  But it's way too early to worry about that.

4. Yes!  Right now, football needs to be the #1 focus for the athletic dept.  It makes the most money and this is our window to change everything about the program for years to come.

5. Great conclusion. What is happening right now is unbelievable and extremely fun.

[southsidehoosier]

I feel like the next thing to secure Cig’s longevity at IU will be the stadium and practice facilities. I believe the Daily Hoosier did a piece about that and interviewed Dolson as well. 

[Demo]

Van Pelt stepping right up to the line of putting IU in the B1G top tier.

[Brass Cannon]

26 minutes ago, southsidehoosier said:

I feel like the next thing to secure Cig’s longevity at IU will be the stadium and practice facilities. I believe the Daily Hoosier did a piece about that and interviewed Dolson as well. 

Can’t imagine the donor money flowing if we get another CFP in. Especially if Notre Dame misses and we have more than them. 

[southsidehoosier]

13 minutes ago, Brass Cannon said:

Can’t imagine the donor money flowing if we get another CFP in. Especially if Notre Dame misses and we have more than them. 

I’d love to see IU get to host a CFP game this year. 

[Home Jersey]

I've seen enough.

I'm ready for a Cig statue outside the stadium

[Hoosierfan2017]

NIL is the only thing I could see causing Cig to leave. And a job like Florida doesn’t worry me all that much. This year Florida plays LSU, Miami, Texas, Texas A&M, Georgia, Ole Miss, Tennessee, and Florida State. That’s an absolute gauntlet of a schedule. It’s not always going to be that tough, but still. Florida fans will expect any coach to win 6 or 7 of those, and when they don’t, they’ll call for his job. 

In the Big 10, you’ve got Ohio State, Penn State, and Oregon as the three top dogs, but really every other spot in the conference is up for grabs. IMHO, I think the road to the CFP is easier at IU than it is at Florida. The ceiling might be higher at Florida because of the blueblood name, resources, etc., but good luck getting through the SEC every year (like the fans will expect) to reach that ceiling. 

[Stuhoo]

If Manette Cignetti is happy, Curt is staying through retirement.

[Demo]

7 minutes ago, Stuhoo said:

If Manette Cignetti is happy, Curt is staying through retirement.

Yup. Imagine that’s the one person who without even looking up from her iPad can just say, “No, Dear.”

[Stuhoo]

 

With MANY MANY thanks to @Lebowski, it seems as though we can summarize the current state of IU football recruiting as "no longer competing with MAC teams for players."

The dude abides, and so does IU Football recruiting.

 

[TTT]

2 hours ago, Pagoda said:

Some of my guesses, I have no insider knowledge:

1. At his age, probably no?  CFB lifer.

2. Not sure, but I'd say yes on matching whatever someone else might pay him.  Frankly it's hard to pay him much more.  He's at $9M/yr plus bonuses after his raise last year, which is nearly top-10, and his staff is almost a blank check and definitely top-10, maybe top-5.  The staff all got raises, with Haines getting three total and Owings getting two total due to big program interest.  We've done all we can to keep his staff together.  Amazing job from Scott, Pam, and others.

I'm more worried about NIL.  Our total player payroll is around $22-23M and the big boys are $35-$40M+.  Our roster is mostly 3*'s.  Recruiting has picked up, but it's still 3* heavy.  While he gets more than I thought possible from these guys, if he feels he can't afford the athletes/raw talent he needs to beat top-10 teams, that's an issue.  If we can keep increasing our player payroll $5M or more per year until we're 75-80% of the big boy programs, he will feel the building momentum and have more of a ceiling to operate in.  Tough job for Scott but this should be his top priority.

We of course want to keep upgrading facilities, though really our faculties are "okay" and likely not a deal breaker.

3. Not sure.  He is older, his wife likes Bloomington, and changing to a mega program job, while it would bring more resources/CFB culture, also brings risks.  Right now he is big man on campus with autonomy and he has a great relationship with Scott and Pam.  This is his chance to be the all-time legacy guy of a program where he leaves and everything is named after him.  That won't happen anywhere else.

Go somewhere else and there could be a whole world of politics to deal with (sort of like our bball program), job risk (though he's a confident guy), and a need to recruit a different player/part of the country, which he has not done before.  Is that really the best fit for him?  I don't know what he thinks.

And that last part may help us on the other side too.  Larger programs see a great coach, but he's older and has never recruited 5*'s in their neck of the woods.  I'm sure they're interested, but he isn't a no-brainer ideal fit for somewhere like Florida.  The main school that worries me is somewhere like Penn State if Franklin screws up and they lose faith in him and Cig does something like win one of the games at Oregon or PSU this year.  But it's way too early to worry about that.

4. Yes!  Right now, football needs to be the #1 focus for the athletic dept.  It makes the most money and this is our window to change everything about the program for years to come.

5. Great conclusion. What is happening right now is unbelievable and extremely fun.

Thanks for thoughtful insight.  That would seem to be a extremely high Self Actualized career life.