Prior to winning the National Championship with the Indiana Hoosiers, Curt Cignetti was tearing it up at James Madison University, and an interesting story about his early days at the program have now emerged.
At the time, JMU heavily depended on their quarterback Ben DiNucci, and with a place in the NFL Draft looming, the QB was flying high when Cignetti showed up.
DiNucci has now revealed that in Cignetti’s early days, DiNucci came under fire in a rather funny way.
“My very first mat drill, so Curt Cignetti got hired in February 2019, which was going into my senior year of college in JMU, so offseason workouts start – the 6 AM kinda mat drills in the morning. The hour mat drill is done – hey everybody on the line we’re gonna run sprints to end,” DiNucci explained.
“Cignetti makes it very clear if anyone jumps we’re gonna start over at any point, he goes on the whistle and lo & behold Ben DiNucci decides to not on purpose but I jumped the gun the first snap.
“Hey I’m the quarterback I wanna make an impression, let me try to beat some of these guys. He stops the drill right there, calls me a “slap**ck” in front of the entire team, says I don’t care what you did last year..and made it clear when you step in between the white lines it’s going to be all business.”
Tough Lesson Worked Well for DiNucci
The lesson in discipline seemed to work well for DiNucci as he himself agrees it helped him have a great NFL career where he played from 2020 to 2025 as a top quarterback.
Cignetti’s focus on discipline is likely what helped Indiana buck the odds last season, shocking the world and winning the Natty with Fernando Mendoza leading the way as quarterback.
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