PASADENA, Calif. — After hoisting the Leishman Trophy as Rose Bowl champion, Indiana head football coach Curt Cignetti said his remarkable job transforming the Hoosiers from doormat to juggernaut would make for a great movie.
Few, if any, among IU’s coaches and players know the plot line better than Pat Kuntz.
Indiana’s defensive tackles coach is a born and bred Hoosier. He grew up in Indianapolis, played football at Notre Dame, and even got a short-lived taste of the NFL with the hometown Colts. He launched his coaching career at Roncalli High, his alma mater, before becoming a graduate assistant at IU. Kuntz joined Cignetti at James Madison in December 2021, and followed him back to Bloomington in Dec. 2023.
Everyone around the IU program cares a great deal about the team’s success — nobody advances to the College Football Semifinals without a high care level. But for someone like Kuntz, seeing Indiana football win the Rose Bowl Game carries a little extra significance.
“It means a lot to me. It means a lot to this state. And I know a ton of people that I’ve grew up with my whole life that are so passionate about Indiana,” Kuntz told The Daily Hoosier after the game. “I’ve seen this whole picture from decades long. It’s a decades-long story. And just seeing where we’re at right now, it’s really special to be a part of.”
Kuntz thinks of his father, Tom, as his team’s made history the last two years. At 80 years old, Tom has seen just about everything following Indiana football: the rare, fleeting highs, the many “rock bottoms”, and everything in between.
Pat and his wife, Amber, FaceTimed Tom from the field Thursday amidst the postgame celebrations after the top-ranked Hoosiers defeated No. 9 Alabama 38-3 in the Rose Bowl. He said he couldn’t hear a word his dad said, but called it a special moment.
Tom is Pat’s lens into the way Indiana fans watch games.
“It’s crazy. I get texts from him, I’ll get 40 texts and he’s texting through the game. It’s like, he’s announcing the game,” Kuntz told TDH. “When I get to the bus, I’m going to read the whole game breakdown, that I actually lived. I’m like, ‘Dad, you know, I actually experienced this. I know what happened.’ … It’s just funny, the highs and lows.”
Tight end James Bomba is right up there with Kuntz.
Bomba grew up in Bloomington, with family members who played football at IU and later worked for the athletic department. The redshirt senior played at Bloomington High School South, and joined the Hoosiers football program as a walk-on in 2021 before earning a scholarship in 2022. He grew up a huge IU fan.
The only way James Bomba could be more innately connected with Bloomington and Indiana University is if he grabbed a bicycle and rode in the Little 500 for Cutters. He knew how improbable it was for IU to be at the Rose Bowl, let alone win in dominant fashion.
“It’s unbelievable. I was telling the guys all week, this is something that you dream of,” Bomba told TDH. “As a little kid, growing up as a Big Ten fan, especially an IU fan, it’s kind of something that you think is just far out of reach. And to be here is just unbelievable.”
Everyone within the program has perspectives on this season’s magical run and something that’s made it special for each individual in the building. But Kuntz and Bomba share viewpoints, surely, with thousands and thousands of Bloomington natives and Indiana fans around the country.
Winning the Rose Bowl, going to the Peach Bowl, and standing two wins away from a national championship — in football — are things few, if any, Hoosier fans could’ve seriously dreamed about throughout most of their lives. This program had the most losses in college football history until this year.
Bomba doesn’t think his younger self would believe it if that child heard he was wearing an Indiana uniform at the Rose Bowl, in the winning locker room.
“Growing up an IU fan, there’s a lot of hard times. I don’t even know if I ever missed a game growing up. Just tailgating, was at almost every single game. And we were all just trying to make a bowl game. Like, that was the hope every year was, ‘All right, let’s win six games, get to a bowl game.’ So for this to happen right now, it’s just unbelievable,” Bomba told TDH. “I bleed cream and crimson. It’s been in my blood since the day I was born, and it always will be.”
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