Indiana football head coach Curt Cignetti has become known for a few things through two full seasons in Bloomington: winning and viral press conference quotes. He delivered another such quote on Thursday during his first media availability of the 2026 spring football season.
Nick Marsh, a junior wide receiver for the Hoosiers, is in his first season with the program after transferring in from Michigan State this past offseason. He showed up to today’s practice wearing a pair of gold cleats, something
Cignetti wasn’t a huge fan of.
“He learned what getting your ass ripped is all about,” Cignetti said. “I don’t know if that happened to him very often at Michigan State. That was before practice started. That was a wake-up call. But he’s really worked hard, done a great job for us.”
It was pretty standard Cignetti style, praise weaved into a joke. You wouldn’t expect a Purdue wide receiver sporting red cleats this spring to go over well with Boilermakers head coach Barry Odom, would you?
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Last year, Indiana won its first national championship in program history to cap the first 16-0 college football season in over a century. Cignetti, who already became one of the sport’s most discussed characters with his statements ahead of, during and after the 2024 season, backed up all that talking he did.
He did a lot of that talking to create attention and excitement for the program ahead of his first season, having since shared that he no longer feels the need to do so. This is for the love of the game.
