I’m sorry, but Indiana University is a basketball (and men’s soccer) school.
The current renaissance orchestrated by former Indiana University of Pennsylvania and James Madison University head coach Curt Cignetti will likely pass, and the awakening will recede into the collective memories of stunned Hoosiers fans.
IU has experienced 21 losing seasons since the turn of the century. Its best season before Cignetti’s emergence on the FBS scene was 8-5 in 2019 under head coach Tom Allen (who served as Penn State’s defensive coordinator in 2024). But between losing seasons and sparse crowds, the Hoosiers were second fiddle to the men’s basketball team, and, don’t forget, the perennial national championship-contending men’s soccer team.
Cignetti, son of legendary coach Frank Cignetti Sr., used his coaching genes to forge his way into the big time. Since his hiring in 2024, IU has been an Immovable object and an unstoppable force. The Hoosiers made it into the inaugural College Football Playoff, and, after losing to Notre Dame, Cignetti stewed about the setback and came back stronger in 2025 thanks in large part to college football’s transfer portal.
The Hoosiers are decimating and demoralizing opponents. This season, IU outscored opponents 639-166. It played cat and mouse with Oregon in the CFP quarterfinals, winning 56-22. No one can come close. No one, so far, can compete. We’ll wait and see if Miami can stay with Indiana on Jan. 19 in the CFP title game in, of all places, Miami.
No one can argue with the success of the program over the past two seasons. After going 11-2 in 2024, Indiana is 15-0 with a chance to finish with the best record in college football history.
Then what?
Will there be a team reunion in five or 10 years to commemorate the 2025 season? Probably not, because the portal is more like a vortex, pulling players into a magical carpet ride to other opportunities, another team. Will we be able to name players who played all four years for the same team, like Penn State’s Kaytron Allen and Nicholas Singleton? Probably not.
Do Hoosiers players even know the team’s fight song? Have they heard of Bobby Knight – or Lee Corso? Do they know that the IU men’s soccer team has won eight NCAA Tournament championships and was runner-up nine times?
Though Cignetti, who is raking in $11.6 million a year, has a long-term contract (through 2033), there’s still this matter of the lack of recruitment of high school blue-chip players, and the sense that players today are more like free agents or mercenaries who offer their services to the highest bidders. Sadly, there’s no feeling of identification with the school or the community, just a businesslike approach to the game.
The head coach sets the tone and controls the prevailing attitude among the players and coaching staff. One wonders if Cignetti, who always appears to have a stern and unemotional demeanor on the sidelines, is enjoying the experience as the head coach of an NCAA Division I-A football team. Or has he submerged himself in a win-at-all-costs paradigm and is so obsessed with the W that he would step over the moral lines that otherwise would prevent teams from utter dominance?
In other words, do coaches of elite teams do things the right way? Time will tell if the past two seasons have been a fluke.
In the meantime, Indiana players and fans are enjoying the moment. But time will also tell if the abundance of success produces lasting institutional pride or a hollow feeling in the pit of the stomach that the aforementioned obsession with the W has sacrificed dedication to the process.
