Indiana and its head coach, Curt Cignetti, have been front of mind around college football following the Hoosiers’ run to the national championship last season, Cignetti’s second leading the program.
That includes several facilities around the country, including those of Texas, one of the biggest brands in the sport. Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian recently made an appearance on Always College Football, Greg McElroy’s college football podcast, to discuss a variety of topics, including strength of schedule
and College Football Playoff selection.
Minutes into the discussion, Sarkisian brought up Cignetti’s approach at Indiana and praised the work he’s done in Bloomington.
“There’s a lot of ways to find the path to make it,” Sarkisian said. “Curt Cignetti, an amazing job at Indiana. What he’s done the last two years, there’s not a guy in our profession who can’t say ‘what an unbelievable job,’ and the way he did it has been somewhat unconventional with the sixth year seniors, the transfers, the veteran group, the way they practice, all those things. But one thing in there, he adjusted their schedule too, right? So they’ve got a fresh team, they’re playing a lot of players early in the year, they’re a happy team.”
Sarkisian seems to be alluding to Indiana’s non-conference scheduling under Cignetti, which has yet to feature a power conference opponent. It’s worth noting that Indiana previously had a series scheduled with Louisville that would run through Cignetti’s tenure in 2024 and 2025, though it was cancelled prior to his hiring. Indiana has cancelled games against power conference opponents under Cignetti though, nixing a series against Virginia set for 2027 and 2028. Indiana previously agreed to a home-and-home series with Notre Dame in 2021 with games set to be played in 2030 and 2031.
Indiana holds shorter practices that emphasize efficiency under Cignetti and has signed several transfers, many of whom joined Cignetti from his previous job at James Madison ahead of the 2024 season.
“We can’t, everybody wanna adopt the Indiana way, but then not adopt all of the Indiana way, but other people now are starting to follow suit. So, to Coach Cignetti’s credit, everybody wants to impact our sport in some way, shape or form in a positive way, he’s impacting people cause people now are starting to adjust their non-conference schedules because they’re seeing the value of another win as opposed to the value of the strength of your schedule.”
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