This is how a football school acts.
After Indiana football earned one of its biggest-ever wins at Oregon last week, the Hoosiers have lived in the spotlight. The attention hasn’t been all flowers and praise, though. After Penn State fired head coach James Franklin on Sunday, IU head coach Curt Cignetti became a popular name among rumors and reports of potential candidates to take over in Happy Valley.
It took IU athletic director Scott Dolson only four days — the same amount of time from Tom Allen’s firing to Cignetti’s hire in Nov. 2023 — to sign Cignetti to a lucrative contract extension. IU announced an eight-year extension for Cignetti on Thursday, worth $11.6 million per year on average.
“We are committed to investing in IU Football in such a way that we can compete at a championship level,” Dolson said in IU’s press release, “and the No. 1 priority in doing that is ensuring that Coach Cignetti is the leader of our program.”
Cignetti may have drawn interest from not only Penn State, but any major jobs that come open by the end of the season. Those programs might have faced difficulty getting Cignetti away from Bloomington, already, given his age (64) and timing — with IU in strong position to return to the College Football Playoff, Cignetti might not have been available to start a new job until those programs would’ve already wanted a coach in place.
But the Hoosiers removed all doubts over Cignetti’s future with this contract extension. Dolson acted promptly and aggressively in doing so — just as he did last year. Cignetti led Indiana to a historic 11-2 2024 campaign that saw the program reach its first CFP. The sides agreed to a new eight-year contract worth $8 million per year on average during IU’s bye week last season, after the team started 10-0 for the first time in program history.
“We’ve accomplished a lot here in a short amount of time, but still have a lot of work to do. I couldn’t be more proud to be a Hoosier, and I plan on retiring as a Hoosier,” Cignetti said in a video posted on IU football’s social media accounts. “The way that this state has embraced us and our success in football has meant more to me than anything else. So I just wanted to get on camera and let you know that Curt Cignetti is going to work daily to make Indiana the best they can be.”
This new contract should assuage any doubts about Indiana’s ability to compete with major job openings in terms of money or prestige. Cignetti’s tenure in Bloomington, through just a season and a half, has already thrust him among the greatest coaches to ever roam the sideline at Indiana.
And he doesn’t see IU as a “stepping stone” job. By signing a new contract to stay, Cignetti reaffirmed his own belief in what he’s built the Hoosiers into and the program’s long-term sustainability.
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