{"id":414277,"date":"2026-01-18T04:48:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T04:48:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/414277\/"},"modified":"2026-01-18T04:48:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T04:48:17","slug":"highly-rated-college-football-coach-curt-cignetti-sensationally-rules-himself-out-of-ever-taking-an-nfl-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/414277\/","title":{"rendered":"Highly-rated college football coach Curt Cignetti sensationally rules himself out of EVER taking an NFL job"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"author-section byline-plain\">By <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/profile-182\/daniel-matthews.html\" class=\"author\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">DANIEL MATTHEWS, US SENIOR SPORTS WRITER<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/follow?screen_name=_DanMatthews_&amp;tw_p=followbutton\" class=\"twitter-follow-author\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/a> <\/p>\n<p class=\"byline-section\"> Published:  14:58 EST, 17 January 2026   |  Updated:  15:07 EST, 17 January 2026   <\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\"><a style=\"font-weight: bold;\" target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/indiana\/index.html\" id=\"mol-2be77970-f3d1-11f0-8f40-df9e88974ce8\" class=\"class\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Indiana<\/a> coach Curt Cignetti has ruled out ever taking a job in the NFL &#8211; despite being on the verge of a national championship with the Hoosiers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Cignetti has become one of the most highly-rated coaches in football after transforming Indiana into the No 1-ranked team in the country.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">The Hoosiers are heavily favored to win the College Football Playoffs against the No 10-ranked Miami Hurricanes on Monday night.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">There are currently nine vacant head coaching jobs in the NFL including the <a style=\"font-weight: bold;\" target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/sport\/new-york-giants\/index.html\" id=\"mol-e1973dc0-f3de-11f0-820b-b3a299f6b9a8\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">New York Giants<\/a>, <a style=\"font-weight: bold;\" target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/sport\/miami-dolphins\/index.html\" id=\"mol-e196efa0-f3de-11f0-820b-b3a299f6b9a8\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Miami Dolphins<\/a> and <a style=\"font-weight: bold;\" target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/sport\/baltimore-ravens\/index.html\" id=\"mol-e194f3d0-f3de-11f0-820b-b3a299f6b9a8\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Baltimore Ravens<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">But on Saturday, Cignetti said:\u00a0&#8216;I\u2019m not an NFL guy&#8230;\u00a0I made that decision a long time ago. I\u2019ve always been a college football guy.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Indiana reached the CFP final with a 56-22 rout of No 5 Oregon. That took Cignetti&#8217;s record at Indiana to 26-2 since he joined in 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>   <img decoding=\"async\" id=\"i-3f82800e641f1521\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/105600415-15473135-image-a-3_1768679120269.jpg\" height=\"425\" width=\"634\" alt=\"Highly-rated Indiana Hoosiers coach Curt Cignetti has ruled out ever taking a job in the NFL\" class=\"blkBorder img-share\" style=\"max-width:100%\" loading=\"lazy\" \/>   <\/p>\n<p class=\"imageCaption\">Highly-rated Indiana Hoosiers coach Curt Cignetti has ruled out ever taking a job in the NFL<\/p>\n<p>   <img decoding=\"async\" id=\"i-d758c4d51eedfdf2\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/105600417-15473135-image-a-2_1768679054874.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\" alt=\"Cignetti has transformed Indiana's fortunes and led them to the national championship game\" class=\"blkBorder img-share\" style=\"max-width:100%\" loading=\"lazy\" \/>   <\/p>\n<p class=\"imageCaption\">Cignetti has transformed Indiana&#8217;s fortunes and led them to the national championship game<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">The 64-year-old has now secured more wins in his first two seasons than any other coach in FBS history.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Victory over Miami on Monday would see the Hoosiers end the season 16-0. No team has done that since Yale in 1894.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">His Indiana team is led by Heisman-winning quarterback Fernando Mendoza, who is expected to be the No 1 pick in the 2026 NFL draft.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">&#8216;I believe a year ago today or the day before actually is the day I arrived on campus,&#8217; Mendoza said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">&#8216;Hoosier Nation, the coaching staff and the entire sports staff has given me so much opportunity here and (shown) so much belief in my character and my play, not only as a player, also as a leader that I&#8217;m forever in debt.&#8217;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>                    Share or comment on this article:<br \/>\n                        Highly-rated college football coach Curt Cignetti sensationally rules himself out of EVER taking an NFL job<\/p>\n<p>        <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By DANIEL MATTHEWS, US SENIOR SPORTS WRITER Published: 14:58 EST, 17 January 2026 | Updated: 15:07 EST, 17&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[8849,10203,98,399,2652,1322,398,396,397,1079,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-414277","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-baltimore-ravens","9":"tag-collegefoobtall","10":"tag-dailymail","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-indiana","13":"tag-miami-dolphins","14":"tag-ncaa","15":"tag-ncaa-football","16":"tag-ncaafootball","17":"tag-sport","18":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414277","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=414277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}