Curt Cignetti dares to dream big at Indiana -- and so far, he's right

In Curt Cignetti's world, the obvious questions are met with obvious questions. Why wouldn't Indiana be 5-0 at this point? Why wouldn't the Hoosiers be ranked for only the second time since 2020?

Why wouldn't a 63-year-old who has seen it all walk around like he's done it all?

"It's pretty simple," Indiana's head coach said when he was hired in December. "I win. Google me."

To be fair, Cignetti made that proclamation before the season. But timing matters less than what Cignetti has done to back it up.

Entering Week 6, there are five teams in the country sitting at 5-0. One of them is a basketball school in central Indiana with the second-worst winning percentage all-time among current Group of Five schools (ninth-worst all time in FBS at .420).

Only one of them has a coach who sent an email urging the student body to show up and show out for last Saturday's game against Maryland, a 42-28 win. "The parties can wait …," Cignetti said. "If you need to study, that can wait too."

One of them has a coach who won't settle at a program where expectations are historically low.

"If we go to a bowl it's a great year? Bullshit," Cignetti said. "You want to be the best."

And all of it is more refreshing because, for much of his career, Cignetti has been talking this same junk — just not in front of Big Ten cameras and Power Four notebooks.

"I'm not going to tolerate not being successful," he said.

What, you didn't notice when he was going 53-17 at Indiana University of Pennsylvania from 2011 to 2016? You missed it as Cignetti led James Madison from FCS to FBS, going 52-9 from 2019 to 2023? If so, you probably also missed the gig as Philip Rivers' position coach at NC State.

You surely missed the recruiting coordinator on Nick Saban's first staff at Alabama who helped land Julio Jones, Dont'a Hightower and Heisman winner Mark Ingram. Cignetti's national championship ring from 2009 still fits nicely, thank you.

You missed a lot, then. Who is Curt Cignetti? Not surprisingly, the son of a coach. Frank Cignetti Sr. won 199 games in a College Football Hall of Fame career, instilling in his son a no-B.S. work ethic that endures to this day. Frank Cignetti was given last rites twice, beat cancer, then lived 43 more years before passing away on the same day his son defeated Norfolk State with James Madison in 2022.

"He would've wanted me to coach," Curt told CBS Sports this week, explaining why he wasn't at his father's side. "I could hear him, 'You coach that game.'"

So when the man says he has a plan, believe him. He keeps referring to his "blueprint" the same way Saban had his "process."

"I knew when we came in and I started interviewing the old players we needed a lot of new faces," Cignetti said before the season. "And, fortunately, they did me a favor by leaving."

He then brought in a listed 31 transfers, half of them from James Madison. Thirty-nine players left. 

"There was a lot of character in that group," the coach said. "I won't recruit them otherwise."

The Hoosiers had used nine different quarterbacks the last three seasons. There is some stability at the position now. Ohio transfer Kurtis Rourke is a former MAC offensive player of the year who is currently second in Big Ten passing yards.

The 5-0 start is the Hoosiers' first since the 1967 Rose Bowl season. O.J. Simpson scored a touchdown in USC's 14-3 win. Cignetti remembers being in first or second grade back then when college football started to register.

When much was made of this season's Sept. 14 trip back to the Rose Bowl to play UCLA, the coach said, "We're just going to an old stadium to kick somebody's ass."

Indiana's historic 2024 season -- so far

Cignetti has basically become Coach Prime without the designer sunglasses and a film crew trailing behind. Armed with 40 years' experience, Cignetti has legitimately accomplished a thing or two as a coach and doesn't mind telling you a thing or two about it.

"I've been doing it a while," he said. "I've been successful everywhere I've been. I turned it around the first year [each time]. Pretty big turnarounds."

And so why not assume the same can happen at Indiana, a program with two winning seasons since 1994? It worked at IUP, which had been 4-10 in conference the two previous seasons before Cignetti's arrival. The Crimson Hawks then won 12 and advanced to the Division II quarterfinals in Cignetti's second season.

It worked at Elon, which went to the FCS playoffs in each of Cignetti's two seasons. James Madison already was an FCS powerhouse when he took over. Cignetti then shepherded the Dukes through a transition to FBS. In his past three seasons with JMU, the coach produced the Colonial Athletic Association offensive player of the year (Cole Johnson), the Sun Belt offensive player of the year (Todd Centeio) and Sun Belt player of the year (Jordan McCloud) -- all quarterbacks.

But after all that experience, all that swagger, certainly Cignetti had his options in moving up to Power Four. Why Indiana?

"The Big Ten TV contract caught my eye," he said.

Ah yes, that. The Holy Grail of all TV contracts. Signed in 2022, it guarantees each of the 18 teams approximately $75 million per season. By the end of the deal in 2030, Big Ten schools could be making up to $100 million each.

That buys a lot of blocking sleds, and more, if spent right. Working with the Big Ten's fifth-highest budget (13th nationally), Cignetti was able to land the third-largest transfer class in FBS.

When he arrived, the coach says, there were only 10 offensive starters. Half the defense was in the portal. Compared to Colorado, at Indiana a roster flip was actually happening -- or at least happening quicker.

"I felt like we really flipped the roster," he said. "All we had to do was put them on the field. I've just had success and expected success. I thought it was important that I set that public expectation."

Tom Allen had raised spirits briefly in 2020 with a 6-2 season during COVID-19 that was infused by a young Michael Penix Jr. Allen couldn't sustain the success, Penix transferred to Washington, and the Hoosiers lost 18 of their next 27 games.

"I don't know what the old Indiana was," Cignetti said.

The new Indiana can get to 6-0 at the halfway point by winning at Northwestern this week. In the second half, the Hoosiers do have Michigan and Ohio State in back-to-back games (separated by a bye week), but a 10-2 season seems doable.

And 10-2 in the Big Ten -- with all that money and all those challenges -- just might get you in the College Football Playoff.

How's that for swagger?

"I operate a little better when I have a chip on my shoulder," Cignetti said.