If Curt Cignetti can flip Indiana from 3-9 to 10-0, imagine what he could do at Florida, Oklahoma or Auburn?
That’s what a lot of people were thinking as Indiana continued to rack up impressive win after impressive win.
And IU AD Scott Dolson knew every top program in America looking to make a change would have Cignetti at or near the top of their list.
What if Cignetti got an offer that more than doubled his IU salary at one of the game’s traditional power brands?
Dolson wanted to defuse the situation by getting ahead of the poachers. The wheels to give Cignetti a massive raise were in motion roughly halfway into the season.
“As the season started to unfold – I think it was after game five, maybe game six – I remember thinking, I actually had a update meeting with (IU) President (Pam) Whitten, and I remember thinking I don’t want (Cignetti) to start thinking are we going to come to him about a contract?” Dolson said Monday evening on the Inside IU Basketball radio show. “Or just because we were doing so well, getting so much attention. I said to him, we were going to continue to invest in football.”
Dolson said he received authorization from Whitten to commence negotiations on a new deal with Cignetti and his agent.
“I had my meeting with coach Cig. I said to him, I know the last thing you want to think about right now is your contract,” Dolson said. “He’s worried about our next opponent. But I said, I want to get out in front of it, because I don’t want you to worry, does your agent have to shop you around? How are we gonna do this? I said it’s really important to us that we’re not just being reactive to someone coming after you. We know your value, and we know where you are in the Big Ten, and we want you to feel that. It was important to me that he didn’t feel that we were just doing it because of somebody else. We were doing it because of what he means to us and our investment in the program.”
The Daily Hoosier has made a FOIA request for Cignetti’s new contract but it has not been released as of late Monday evening.
We know Cignetti’s deal averages around $9 million per year after including an annual retention bonus. But what will be interesting are the details beyond that headline number. Will the contract bind IU in any way to make facilities upgrades? Will it require raises for assistant coaches too?
The expectation on both of those questions is yes, but whether that kind of stuff is formally in the document or part of a handshake agreement remains to be seen.
“We talked about what’s important moving forward for the program, that’s it’s definitely not all about him,” Dolson said. “He wants to make certain from a staff perspective, obviously from a player perspective, that we’re investing in all areas that are important to make this a sustainable vision for the program. That’s why he’s there. That’s why we’re in this together. So we started a conversation with his agent subsequently after that meeting. His agent was terrific, and we ended up with a deal last week.”
The contract out of the way during the bye week, Cignetti can now comfortably focus on one of the biggest games in program history. He leads No. 5 Indiana (10-0) to Ohio State for a massive showdown Saturday at Noon ET (FOX).
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