Curt Cignetti Reaffirms Intention To Remain Indiana Football Coach

On Wednesday’s Pat McAfee Show, Indiana football coach Curt Cignetti said, “This is where it ends for me.”

Indiana coach Curt Cignetti celebrates defeating Michigan at Memorial Stadium. / Rich Janzaruk/Herald-Times / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Indiana football coach Curt Cignetti didn’t need to confirm he’s staying in Bloomington. The new eight-year contract he signed in November served that purpose. 

But just in case there was any doubt, he stated his long-term plans Wednesday on the Pat McAfee Show. 

Cignetti and McAfee were discussing their alma mater, West Virginia, which recently hired Rich Rodriguez as its new head football coach. Cignetti’s and Rodriguez's playing careers overlapped in the early 1980s in Morgantown, W.V., under coach Frank Cignetti and later, Don Nehlen.

Though Rodriguez just signed a five-year deal with West Virginia, McAfee gauged Cignetti's interest in the job, perhaps in a joking manner. 

"Didn't know if you wanted to come back to West Virginia," McAfee said. "But, hey, no poaching."

"No. No. No," Cignetti said, smiling. "This is home right here, baby. This is where it ends for me. Hey, and we're just getting started. We're just getting started here, okay.” 

"You got your guy at West Virginia..

How about them Mountaineers" ~ @CCignettiIU #PMSLive pic.twitter.com/AyNwzH7x4s

— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) December 18, 2024

In Cignetti’s first season, Indiana went 11-1 in the regular season and earned the No. 10 seed in the College Football Playoff. That sets up a matchup against No. 7 seed Notre Dame at 8 p.m. ET Friday in South Bend, Ind. 

Cignetti has already won five national coach of the year awards, and that number will likely grow by the end of the season as some awards are still to be announced. He has led one of the sport's biggest turnarounds, taking an Indiana program that went 9-27 the last three seasons and to winning a program-record 11 games.

During a press conference with local media Wednesday, Cignetti spoke at length about what those honors mean to him and the program.

“It's a credit to our team and our coaches,” Cignetti said. “You know, it's flattering. I haven't had a lot of time to think about it, truthfully. I'm sure at some point it will register. I think when you're young and you aspire to be good in any profession, these kinds of things are meaningful. But I've got to give a lot of credit, first of all, to our administration for providing the support and commitment that allowed us to have the means to be successful and then our staff, who had a major role, Derek Owings, our strength and conditioning coordinator, the assistant coaches, in developing these players.

“Then the players themselves, who chose Indiana, bought into a vision and a dream. They had to dig deep. They had to do their research and believed it was possible. A lot of them were looking for a bigger stage to prove themselves, and they've bought in. They received the message. They apply it daily. They've been very consistent. They've been a great group to coach. It's never perfect, never always perfect. There's a hiccup here and there, but this team has really a lot of kids on it that are great leaders and a lot of character on this football team, a lot of experience, a lot of guys that have been two, three, four-year starters, have been very consistent through the years. You know, it all came together.

“I hear a lot about our schedule, right? When the season started, we were playing the defending national champ, the runner-up, and Ohio State, and six or seven teams that have played in bowl games. We have the largest margin of victory in the country, and if you just look at P4 teams, it's the second largest margin of victory. Then I hear, well, we haven't beaten a top 25 team. When we played Nebraska, they were 25th in the coaches poll. We were 18th. We beat them 56-7, okay. So at the end of the day, those awards – back to the awards, right? This is where all this started. I'm very appreciative. I'm humbled. But I've got to give credit where credit is due, and that's to everybody else in this organization.’’

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