Curt Cignetti completed one of the best seasons by a first-year head coach in college football history, culminating in a College Football Playoff berth after taking over a 3-9 Indiana Hoosiers team.
While the Hoosiers’ run was undoubtedly good for the sport, does Cignetti’s quick turnaround by way of the transfer portal unintentionally put unfair expectations on first-year coaches in the future?
Indiana Head Coach Curt Cignetti’s Quick Turnaround Elevates the Standard for First-Year Head Coaches
What Cignetti did in his first year as head coach with Indiana was nothing short of excellence.
Hired on November 30, 2023, he inherited a 3-9 team with only one win in the Big Ten. Cignetti orchestrated a program-wide shift as soon as he got the job, adding 31 new players through the transfer portal — 13 of which came from his former team, the James Madison Dukes.
Success is not foreign to Cignetti, and he let people know about it. When asked what he’d say to sell recruits on the program after getting the Hoosiers job, he simply responded, “I win, Google me.”
It was quite the statement, but it’s true. While coaching the Dukes, Cignetti compiled a 52-9 record across five seasons, winning Sun Belt Coach of the Year in 2023 after an 11-1 campaign.
After the roster transformation in the early months of his time in Bloomington, the Hoosiers began the season 10-0 — the best start in the school’s 138-year history. A win in the final game of the regular season completed an 11-1 record — the most wins in school history.
The Hoosiers earned a spot in the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff, facing off against the eventual runner-up Notre Dame Fighting Irish. Regardless of the 27-17 loss to the Fighting Irish, the Hoosiers far and away exceeded any expectations that were put on them heading into the season.
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Cignetti was named AP Coach of the Year, an easy choice for voters, considering the year-to-year shift he orchestrated.
As mentioned, the roster transformation was one of the driving forces behind the eight-win turnaround.
Quarterback Kurtis Rourke, who spent five years with the Ohio Bobcats, led the offensive charge in his final season of eligibility, throwing for 29 touchdowns vs. only five interceptions.
Leading rusher Justice Ellison spent his first four seasons with the Wake Forest Demon Deacons before breaking out with the Hoosiers, running for 848 yards and 10 touchdowns. Behind Ellison, the next two leading rushers were JMU transfers, while the third was also a fifth-year transfer.
IU’s leading receiver, Elijah Sarrat, amassed 957 yards and eight touchdowns a year after also catching eight touchdowns with the Dukes. Starting tight end Zach Horton, also a JMU transfer, caught four touchdowns for the Hoosiers.
Defensively, Indiana’s four leading tacklers, led by junior linebacker Aidan Fisher, were all brought in through the transfer portal — three of which were from James Madison. Sack leader, defensive lineman Mikail Kamara, produced 7.5 sacks for the Dukes in 2023 before registering 10.0 sacks with the Hoosiers this year.
All in all, the leading passer, rusher, receiver, tackler, and sack leader came from Cignetti’s previous team.
In normal situations, it takes a newly hired head coach time to set the culture of the program. But in Cignetti’s case, after bringing in so many of his former players in key leadership positions, the process was accelerated exponentially.
Which is why he may have set the bar unfairly high for first-year coaches in the future.
Not every newly hired head coach has the same proven success at another program like Cignetti did. He knew how to win — and more specifically, he knew how to win with the players he recruited while at JMU.
After taking the Indiana job, he simply took those players with him. While coaching a Power Four team is a lot different than a team in the Sun Belt Conference, that’s where Cignetti’s program-building prowess comes into play.
No matter the circumstances, he’s proven his ability to turn around a program in a short period of time. Normally, it takes multiple seasons for a head coach to get his full grip on the program, in terms of culture-setting and recruiting.
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Cignetti did it in less than one calendar year.
Will we see it again? Maybe, but it’s unlikely we’ll see the same level of execution that Cignetti was able to pull off.
What he did has never been done before. Therefore, the expectation that it can easily happen again for another first-year coach shouldn’t be expected. Indiana’s 2024 season was one of one — and Cignetti can be described the same exact way.
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