By Mark Nagi
Well, Curt Cignetti just screwed up the coaching system…
Unless you’ve been sitting under a rock for the last couple of years, you know the story.
Curt Cignetti, a former Alabama assistant coach under Nick Saban, had been a head coach at Indiana University of Bloomington, Elon University and James Madison. Following the 2023 season, he was hired to be the head coach at Indiana, the losingest team in the FBS.
Going into the 2024 season, the Hoosiers were 502-717-46. They hadn’t won a bowl game since 1991. Two years later, Cignetti has Indiana at the top of the college football world. Indiana just put the capper on a 16-0 season, with a Big Ten title, dominant playoff wins over Alabama in the Rose Bowl, Oregon in the Peach Bowl, and then a national championship victory over Miami… in Miami.
This was no fluke. Cignetti built a battering ram in Bloomington. This is the new Alabama, a team that runs roughshod through opponents, a new version of bully-ball. Certainly, having a Heisman Trophy-winning QB in Fernando Mendoza helped, but it isn’t like that roster is stocked with 4 and 5-star talent. This is a team that has gone 27-2 over the last two seasons.
And what Cignetti has accomplished has completely changed how college football fans view their programs.
From the end of the 2024 season to the end of the 2025 season, there have been over 30 coaching changes in the FBS, an absurd amount of turnover. Major programs like Penn State, LSU, Florida and Auburn fired their coaches and brought in guys that they expect to achieve big things in the years to come.
But if Cignetti can turn Indiana into a national champion in only two seasons, why can’t everyone achieve big things in a short period of time? In this new era of unlimited transfers and NIL, a roster can change overnight. Development is not as important as talent acquisition.
Fans of programs across the country who have been trained to make their donations and buy their season tickets and parking passes and be patient aren’t willing to “trust the process.” They want to see results, and they aren’t content to wait very long anymore.
In Tennessee’s case, Josh Heupel is heading into his sixth season as the Vols head coach. He’s accomplished a good amount, including wins over conference rivals Alabama and Florida. They’ve played in a major bowl game, beating Clemson in the Orange Bowl following the 2022 season, in which UT was ranked 1st for a week in the playoff rankings. They also earned a spot in the 2024 CFB playoffs.
But 2025 was, by most accounts, a down year for Tennessee football, and the pressure on Heupel starts to increase. The 2026 schedule is much tougher. Schools are more willing to pull the trigger on a coaching change much faster today than they were in the past. Buyouts are not always a deterrent.
Curt Cignetti has changed college football … and it’s up to his counterparts to keep pace.
