{"id":360150,"date":"2025-12-20T15:21:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T15:21:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/360150\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T15:21:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T15:21:06","slug":"matt-rhule-jokes-that-curt-cignettis-success-at-indiana-has-made-a-lot-of-us-look-bad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/360150\/","title":{"rendered":"Matt Rhule jokes that Curt Cignetti’s success at Indiana has ‘made a lot of us look bad’"},"content":{"rendered":"

What Indiana<\/a> head coach Curt Cignetti<\/a> has done in just two seasons in Bloomington has been completely unprecedented. Across those two seasons, Cignetti has led the Hoosiers to a 24-2 record, back-to-back College Football Playoff appearances, and a Big Ten Championship. <\/p>\n

By knocking off No. 1 Ohio State<\/a> in the Big Ten title game, Indiana earned the No. 1 seed in the College Football Playoff. The Hoosiers have as good a chance as anyone to win their first-ever National Championship.<\/p>\n

During the latest edition of \u2018House Rhules<\/a>,\u2019 Nebraska<\/a> head coach Matt Rhule<\/a> spoke extremely highly of Cignetti and the job he\u2019s done at Indiana. Although Rhule\u2019s Huskers didn\u2019t face the Hoosiers this season, they did last season. That game ended badly for Nebraska, as Indiana enjoyed a 56-7 blowout victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t explain it,\u201d Rhule said about Indiana\u2019s recent success. \u201cNothing like this has ever happened. I mean, I can\u2019t explain it. Nothing like it has ever happened. I just think you have to tip your cap to Coach Cignetti. He came in, he called it, and he did it. The first year it was like, you know, they brought in all their players and I think there\u2019s something to that.<\/p>\n

\u201cBringing in players who are used to you, so you\u2019re not having to establish your culture. But last year, they went and got a quarterback from Ohio<\/a> (Kurtis Rourke<\/a>) and he plays at a really high level. This year, they go get the quarterback from Cal<\/a> (Fernando Mendoza<\/a>) and he wins the Heisman Trophy. They\u2019re just coaching really well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Matt Rhule jokes that Curt Cignetti has \u2018made a lot of us look bad\u2019<\/p>\n

Under Cignetti, both quarterbacks have excelled, as\u00a0Rourke was selected in the seventh Round of the 2025 NFL Draft and\u00a0Fernando Mendoza\u00a0was indeed named the Heisman Trophy winner.\u00a0Mendoza passed for 2,980 yards and 33 touchdowns with just six interceptions this season, earning the title of \u2018best player in college football\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just think we all have to say to ourselves that Coach Cignetti has done something that is absolutely amazing,\u201d Rhule continued. \u201cThe rest of us are all chasing it. I got hired and a bunch of guys got hired with me. We\u2019re doing better than some of the guys who got hired at the same time, so we should feel good about that. But when you look at Coach Cignetti and what he\u2019s done, it\u2019s like, it makes you not want to sleep at night.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I\u2019m keeping it real ,bro, and I know this clip will probably go viral, but Coach Cignetti is making a lot of us look bad right now. So we\u2019re going to chase it. But I have to tip my hat to him because he\u2019s done an amazing job. I\u2019m anxious to see them in the Playoff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Across three seasons at Nebraska, Rhule has led the Huskers to a 19-18 record with back-to-back postseason appearances (first time since 2015-16). Nebraska will go for its first eight-win season since 2016 in its SRS Distribution Las Vegas Bowl matchup against No. 15 Utah<\/a>, which will kick off on Dec. 31.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti has done in just two seasons in Bloomington has been completely unprecedented.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360151,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[24321,399,172479,398,396,397,99],"class_list":["post-360150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-curt-cignetti","tag-football","tag-matt-rhule-94-state-college-area","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}