ATLANTA — Curt Cignetti swears that he is a happy person. Well, sometimes. Generally not during football games, though.
Anyone who has watched an Indiana football game during this remarkable two-year turnaround knows that Cignetti is often displeased or outright annoyed on the sidelines. It doesn’t matter if the Hoosiers are up by 35 points in a College Football Playoff national semifinal game or up by 40 points against Kennesaw State. Cignetti will not be smiling.
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“There are a lot of times I am happy, I just don’t show I’m happy,” Cignetti said this week. “If I’m going to ask my players to play the first play to Play 150 the same regardless of the competitive circumstances, then I can’t be seen on the sideline high-fiving people and celebrating — or what’s going to happen?”
It is that mindset that makes the 64-year-old Cignetti who he is. It is that consistency from both his team and his coaching staff that makes Indiana a force to be reckoned with in a sport in which it used to be a punching bag. In less than two years, Indiana went from the losingest program in college football history to a juggernaut.
The top-seeded and undefeated Hoosiers continued their march toward the program’s first national championship with a 56-22 rout of No. 5 Oregon at the Peach Bowl Friday night in the second of two national semifinal games. Indiana will face No. 10 Miami in the national title game at Hard Rock Stadium on Jan. 19.
And the Hoosiers will be favored to win.
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“From the outhouse to the penthouse, baby!” billionaire and alum Mark Cuban said on the field postgame. “That’s the IU Hoosiers!”
Sporting events can be weird or fluky, so it’s certainly within the realm of possibilities that the Hoosiers lose to the Hurricanes in Miami Gardens. But I’m comfortable saying — right now — that Indiana is the best team in college football. That’s not to say this is the most talented roster in the sport this season. It’s probably not going to produce the most pros, either. (Though I will say, Cignetti and co. are so good at developing players that a bunch of them will be playing in the NFL, too …)
But this is the best team in the sport. It’s exactly what you want a football team to be. These players are almost always in exactly the right place at the right time. They do not beat themselves — they rarely get penalized, and they’ve got a plus-21 turnover margin on the season, best in the nation. And they get better over the course of the game as they take in information, adapt to challenges and exploit weaknesses. They are cold-blooded … but in a very warm and likable way.
“It’s what they say — the whole is greater than the sum of the parts,” Indiana athletic director Scott Dolson said. “I go back to the first time I ever talked to Curt Cignetti on the phone, and I didn’t really know him. I did a lot of homework on him, but he said he’s got a blueprint, and he’s got a process, whether it’s the expectations for everyone on his staff or the expectations for the players. When you have that type of organization and you hold everyone accountable, this is the outcome. That team is.”
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This is a group of players that has broken the brains of many smart people in this sport. Every other elite program in the sport has significantly more former four- and five-star prospects than this team does. A bunch of the Hoosiers’ most important players this year were recruited to James Madison and jumped up to the Power 4 level alongside Cignetti and his coaching staff two years ago. Then, the quarterback for a sub-.500 Cal football team transferred to Indiana and became a Heisman Trophy winner. This is just an unbelievably consistent and fundamentally sound team, on both sides of the ball. And it can beat teams that might look bigger, faster and stronger than Indiana on paper.
“There’s not a weakness in their game,” Oregon coach Dan Lanning said. “They run the ball well. They stop the run well. They throw the ball well. They defend the pass well. They’re great in special teams. So, you see a really complete team, a well-coached team. They obviously have a ton of belief and deservedly so. They’re really good.”
Admittedly, it still feels a bit strange to think of the Indiana football team as the sport’s new gold standard. It’s going to take more than two seasons for those of us outside of Bloomington to rewire our brains and get used to the new world order in a sport that’s always had such a rigid pecking order.
But the Indiana football players and coaches do not have that problem. They expect only the best from themselves, which means they expect to be able to do things the rest of us would deem impossible. Because sometimes when you haven’t ever done something before, you forget you’re not supposed to be able to do it.
Don’t tell these Hoosiers that, though. They won’t be happy — or whatever version of happy exists for Cignetti — until they win the whole damn thing.
