Don’t confuse the three players IU football coach Curt Cignetti brought with him to Big Ten Media Day last week for the team’s 2024 captains.
And don’t expect the head coach to be naming captains for his debut season at the helm of the Hoosiers anytime soon.
Cignetti said he chose linebacker Aiden Fisher, running back Justice Ellison and offensive lineman Mike Katic to join him at Lucas Oil Stadium because they represent three distinct groups on his first Indiana roster: a transfer from James Madison where Cignetti came from, a transfer from elsewhere, and a returning IU player.
Every team in the Big Ten had to pick three players to join the head coach in Indianapolis for the annual event. And there’s no doubt Cignetti views the trio he chose as some of the leaders on this 2024 edition of IU football.
But he says he agonized over the decision.
“The hardest decision I had was who to bring to media day,” Cignetti said. “I promise you I could have brought 15 different guys here that are really high character guys, great workers and have played winning football.”
There will be no such difficult decisions when it comes to choosing team captains.
The IU football record book has a separate page listing team captains. The list goes back to 1885, with only a few years, most recently 1951, when the program didn’t have team captains. For what it’s worth, that season started in memorable fashion, with wins at Notre Dame and Ohio State in the first four weeks, only to see the Hoosiers finish with five straight losses and fire head coach Clyde Smith.
Cignetti is hoping for a better fate than Smith in 1951. If you haven’t noticed by now, he likes to do things his own way. And for the first time in 73 years, there will be no captains on this 2024 edition of IU football.
“Never chosen captains, ever,” Cignetti said. “I put guys out in front of flex and then when we are done they say something to the team before practice then we practice. That might be the same three guys, it might be seven guys on a rotation. That’s the way I’ve done it.”
With a 119-35 career record as a head coach, Cignetti seems to have figured some things out.
What’s his rationale for not naming team captains?
Cignetti has often spoken about complacency being an enemy of his football team, and it seems he’s on a never-ending mission to root it out.
Who are the leaders of his team? That’s a week-to-week determination.
And the more, the better.
“I would never want to choose captains early in the year and the guy turns out to be not what you thought he was going to be then you got a problem,” Cignetti said. “Captain is a nice term, it was used a while back, to me it’s more important to have a lot of good leaders.”
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