At Indiana’s national championship celebration at Memorial Stadium on Saturday, AD Scott Dolson recalled his call to Curt Cignetti in late November, 2023.
It was a prophetic moment, that call to Cignetti.
“Two years ago, on a Wednesday at about 10:15 at night, I called Curt Cignetti on the phone. And I said ‘Coach, you’re going to be the next head football coach at Indiana University, and we’re going to shock the world.’
“And there was a pause.
“And he said ‘You’re blankety blank right we’re going to Scott. Let’s go!'”
But it wasn’t that simple.
Before that call from Dolson, Cignetti had already made up his mind.
He was staying at James Madison.
Last week before the national championship game, Cignetti recalled his mindset just hours before the call came in from Dolson.
“It was Wednesday night. I just got back from Indy talking to Scott and the President (Pam Whitten) and I had a pretty good idea they’re going to offer me the job,” Cignetti said.
“And I’m laying in bed with my wife about eight at night and I said ‘I think I’m just going to stay (at James Madison). You know, I like this place.'”
But Dolson’s approach made the difference.
The IU AD has spent his entire career in IU Athletics. Once the Varsity Club director, he has extensive experience in fundraising, and knows how to be influential when dealing with strong personalities. Perhaps that’s where Dolson learned how to handle a moment like this.
Dolson didn’t ask Cignetti if he’d take the job. He effectively installed him as the next head coach, and was just calling to let him know.
And Dolson’s confident approach likely resonated with Cignetti, who as you now know, is quite the confident guy himself. After all, he would be in Bloomington a couple days later on the basketball court telling the world he wasn’t about to take a backseat to anyone, and Purdue, Michigan and Ohio State all sucked.
“Scott didn’t give me a chance,” Cignetti said.
“He called me up said, ‘Congratulations, you’re the new head coach at Indiana and we’re going to kick some butt.’
“And I said something, about five or six words I can’t say here. Hung up the phone and that was it. So he didn’t give me a chance to say no. He told me I’m the new head coach.”
The phone call caught Cignetti off guard.
Just a couple hours earlier he had decided to stay at James Madison.
Now it was time to pack up and move to Bloomington to take over at the college football program with the most losses of all-time.
“My wife said, ‘You should have seen that look in your eye,’ Cignetti said.
“Like, what did I do?”
What he did was set in motion one of the greatest stories in sports history , from biggest all-time loser to undefeated national champion, in two years.
And it started with an offer he wasn’t given a chance to refuse.
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