Todd’s Take: Indiana Backlash Just Grows That Chip On The Hoosiers’ Shoulder

Curt Cignetti has said he wants the chip on Indiana’s shoulder to get bigger. He’s getting all of the fuel he needs this week from skeptics of the Hoosiers’ success.

Todd Golden | Nov 21, 2024

Indiana Hoosiers head coach Curt Cignetti reacts in the second half against the Michigan Wolverines at Memorial Stadium. / Trevor Ruszkowski-Imagn Images

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BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – For the purposes of this column, I had to look up the origin of the phrase “chip on the shoulder.” It’s one of those things you hear so often that the original meaning of it is lost. Was it once a literal thing?

Apparently, it was. It was an informal custom among boys of the 19th Century. The aggrieved party would put a chip of wood on their shoulder and dare a nemesis to knock it off. A prelude to a donnybrook.

The literal act has become a metaphorical stand-in for fighting back after a real or perceived feeling of being disrespected.

Chip on the shoulder has so much currency in sports that it long ago became a cliché. But once in a while the cliché is so perfectly embodied by an athlete or team, that it breathes life back into it.

It will come as no surprise to anyone that Indiana football coach Curt Cignetti loves to lean into the chip-on-the-shoulder ethos.

From the time he made the fateful decision to leave a comfortable life as a career assistant to take a riskier path as a head coach at the age of 50, Cignetti’s career is an exercise not only in overcoming odds, but in proving people wrong. If Cignetti doesn’t have a nickname, it should be “Chip.”

Cignetti gladly acknowledges this. He said it after Indiana’s 41-24 victory at Northwestern on Oct. 5.

“They’ll be reading a lot about how we aren’t good enough to do this and then. I want the chip on their shoulder to keep growing,” Cignetti said.

If Cignetti needed bulletin board quotes to grow that chip into the 2x4 that he wants it to be leading into Saturday’s game at No. 2 Ohio State, he’s got more ammunition than he could have ever hoped.

The Indiana backlash is well on in some circles of the college football universe. Indiana has gone from a cute story to a real threat to some of college football’s nobility.

With a No. 5 slot in the College Football Playoff rankings and an unbeaten record, there’s been a hue and cry among those who may have their own playoff aspirations halted by the upstart Hoosiers.

A story at On3.com had the headline, “Is Indiana a lovable Cinderella or a College Football Playoff nuisance?” The Ari Wasserman-penned story sets the table for its narrative.

“At first, people loved it. At 5-0, it was fun. At 6-0, it was exciting. At 7-0, it was real. At 8-0, things started to shift. That’s when November rolled around and Indiana’s success started to threaten the legacy fanbases. Sentiment changed.”

As the story states, sentiment changed in places that stood to lose where Indiana stood to win. Namely, among SEC bluebloods like Georgia, Tennessee, Texas A&M, and if they lose again, Alabama too.

Some of the criticism levied at Indiana is indirect and passive aggressive. It isn’t necessarily aimed at Indiana directly. Georgia coach Kirby Smart, a member of Alabama’s staff at the same Cignetti was in Tuscaloosa, decried the College Football Playoff rankings and the committee that chooses them.

You know … the rankings that have No. 5 Indiana ahead of No. 10 Georgia.

“I think it’s more than your nonconference games and who you play, it just seems unjust to me when you evaluate somebody’s got a third-ranked defense or somebody’s got a fifth-ranked defense, well don’t you think their defense is dictated by who they played on offense?” Smart said.

“And how many top offenses they played? Because last time I checked, our offense and our defense have played the top offenses and defenses across the country. Well, you’re not gonna be ranked as high if you play top ones than if you played lower ranked ones, and that’s what gets me,” Smart railed.

The SEC – it just means more, says their ad campaign. Unless you lose, and it suddenly doesn’t mean anything.

Media critics are abundant and have taken direct aim at the Hoosiers. Ryan Russillo, podcast host on The Ringer, is among them.

“Indiana has played none of the top seven teams in the Big Ten, but when they finish with Purdue, Indiana is going to play seven of the eight worst teams in an 18-team Big Ten,” Russillo continued.

So far, whether you agree or not, Russillo is trading in facts. We’re all well aware by now that Indiana’s schedule has been kind. Often ignored is the fact that the Hoosiers have been very mean to those kind foes – beating all but one of them by at least two touchdowns.

Russillo continued to rail against expanded conferences and the discrepancies they can create in conference races.

“I’m over all of it. I’m over the expansion completely changing what teams are doing and I think we have to adjust for that,” Russillo said. “I think the committee should have to adjust for that. If you tell me I’m biased, I would tell you that you’re right.”

Fair enough. Because Russillo betrays bias in what he said next.

“But I’m going to be biased about a team like Texas that played in the (expletive deleted) playoff last year,” Russillo said.

Texas – the team that hasn’t beaten a team currently in the top 25 and shares one of its best wins with Indiana? Go on.

“I’m going to be biased about a team like Georgia, that’s put together some incredible seasons,” Russillo continued.

This is probably a good time to jump off. I could be factual and note that the 2024 playoff should have zero to do with previous “seasons,” but that’s heresy in the castles of college football’s traditional powers.

It’s clear that Indiana is shaking the foundations of those castles, and the backlash is getting larger – and more sublime.

When Indiana football success is somewhat bizarrely used as the poster child for what’s wrong with NIL by former coach and current Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-SEC) – things have gone a bit off the rails.

When ESPN analyst Joey Galloway suggested – multiple times! – during the College Football Playoff rankings show that Indiana should sit quarterback Kurtis Rourke to protect its place in the College Football Playoff field? We are through the looking glass. It’s a suggestion so silly it doesn’t deserve a retort.

In the midst of the backlash, I think of Cignetti and his beloved chip on the shoulder. He must be champing at the bit.

With every slight, with every criticism of what the Hoosiers have done or haven’t done, with every coach or expert who takes an indirect or direct shot at the Hoosiers, Cignetti is getting exactly what he wants. That chip keeps growing.

It’s clear that a fair share of outside observers don’t understand what Indiana football under Cignetti has been all about. The Hoosiers are a team that has played without fear or burdened by what its reputation is supposed to be. The backlash isn’t going to knock Indiana aback – they’ll eat it up and ask for seconds.

Indiana relishes the chance to walk into Ohio Stadium and dare the Buckeyes to knock that growing chip off its shoulder. The Hoosiers live for it.

I wouldn’t bet against Indiana backing up their belief. So let the backlash keep coming. It plays right into the Hoosiers’ hands.

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