{"id":114517,"date":"2025-12-31T04:00:21","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T04:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/114517\/"},"modified":"2025-12-31T04:00:21","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T04:00:21","slug":"how-curt-cignetti-molded-indiana-into-the-rose-bowl-favorite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/114517\/","title":{"rendered":"How Curt Cignetti molded Indiana into the Rose Bowl favorite"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Curt Cignetti<\/a> knows winning. No matter where he finds himself, whether it\u2019s James Madison or with the Division II IUP Crimson Hawks, success follows him. Since getting the opportunity to lead a program, Cignetti has never had a losing season.<\/p>\n

When Indiana hired him in November 2023, the Hoosiers were the program with the most all-time losses in college football history, and ended the season with a 3-9 record under Tom Allen.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t a work in progress, the Hoosiers football program needed to be rebuilt. <\/p>\n

On New Year\u2019s Day, Indiana will face Alabama<\/a> in the highly anticipated Rose Bowl matchup<\/a>. The Crimson Tide have a rich postseason history and a tradition of championships, but the Hoosiers are the favorites to win.<\/p>\n

That is the Cignetti effect.<\/p>\n

In two years, he transformed the program from an unranked team, spending most of its time at the bottom of the Big Ten Conference, to the No. 1 team in the country with a Heisman-winning quarterback, Fernando Mendoza. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen he speaks, it means something,\u201d Indiana linebacker Isaiah Jones said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s not gonna go around and hype you up, tell you something you want to hear, he\u2019ll tell you what you need to hear and that\u2019s what makes him so special as a coach.\u201d <\/p>\n

That kind of tough love echoes throughout the team, Jones said. Whether it\u2019s the fifth-string linebacker or the starting linebacker, Cignetti and his staff coach everyone the same way. That is one of the reasons his players trust him and bought into his philosophy.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the coaches want to see you be the best version of yourself,\u201d Jones said. \u201cBut you can\u2019t do that if you\u2019re sugarcoating it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cignetti\u2019s coaching style has turned a starting lineup that consists of more lightly recruited players than five-star prospects into the nation\u2019s No. 1 team.<\/p>\n

Their surprise arrival at college football\u2019s biggest stage has fired up the Hoosiers.<\/p>\n

\"Indiana <\/p>\n

Indiana defensive back D\u2019Angelo Ponds answers questions during a new conference at the Rose Bowl on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

(Marcio Jose Sanchez \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely a chip on our shoulder,\u201d Indiana cornerback D\u2019Angelo Ponds said. \u201cJust to prove to the coaches that they missed out on the opportunity with us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Hoosiers had the past three weeks off<\/a>, earning a first-round College Football Playoff bye. Leading up to their quarterfinal showdown with Alabama in Pasadena, before their opponent was known, Cignetti made it a point to focus on how the Hoosiers could feature the best offense and defense in the country. He wanted players to focus on their own work rather than who they would be playing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn every single phase, in every single facet of the way that we practice and prepare, it\u2019s all about being the best version of us, and not so much our opponent,\u201d Indiana linebacker Aiden Fisher said. <\/p>\n

But as soon as Alabama clinched its ticket to the Rose Bowl, the preparation flipped.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce we understood who the opponent was, it just kind of upped a notch,\u201d Fisher said. \u201c[Cignetti\u2019s] done a great job of blocking out the noise, we don\u2019t hear anything in the media, really.\u201d<\/p>\n

He wants his team to be present during their preparation, never taking a day for granted and getting their bodies and mindset right.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe always says, at the later points in the season, it\u2019s about who shows up ready to play, who\u2019s the most prepared,\u201d Indiana center Pat Coogan said.<\/p>\n

The success of the team started with his recruitment. Regardless of which players leave or enter the locker room, Cignetti makes sure everyone is focused on the same end goal \u2014 winning.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are all cut from the same cloth,\u201d Coogan said. \u201cThat\u2019s why I think this locker room bonds so well, and why we\u2019ve had success, no matter how many people have transferred.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fans flying into Pasadena talk about the ghost of the past, Fisher said. The Hoosiers last made an appearance in the Rose Bowl in 1968 when they lost to USC<\/a>. A win on New Year\u2019s Day will help bolster the football culture in Indiana, but the team understands it needs to focus on Thursday\u2019s game against Alabama and ignore the bigger picture.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a privilege and honor to play in the Rose Bowl,\u201d Fisher said. \u201cBut we\u2019re still playing a football game of four quarters that we have to go and win.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Curt Cignetti knows winning. No matter where he finds himself, whether it\u2019s James Madison or with the Division…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":114518,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[28848,61261,4690,59336,217,49497,59335,9520,48,52,51,47,50,49,61262,18754,34060,9442,4576,10657,427],"class_list":["post-114517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-alabama","tag-cignetti","tag-coach","tag-college-football-history","tag-day","tag-fisher","tag-hoosiers","tag-indiana","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-losing-season","tag-new-year","tag-opponent","tag-player","tag-program","tag-rose-bowl","tag-team"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}