Curt Cignetti entered the national conversation on nonconference scheduling a year ago on brand, jumping in unfiltered with two feet.
At the Big Ten Football media days last July, Cignetti made splash when he said IU had adjusted its nonconference schedule to adopt the “SEC philosophy” of playing nine games against Power 4 competition. It was a reasonable comment at the time, as most teams in the SEC were in fact playing just nine Power 4 opponents each season.
Perhaps just by coincidence, a month later the SEC announced it was moving to a nine-game conference schedule while requiring that its teams play a Power 4 nonconference game. And on the debate has gone.
After a 16-0 national championship run, Cignetti and the Hoosiers have nothing to apologize for when it comes to the schedule . After all, they beat 13 Power 4 teams including six AP top-10 opponents and a dream end-run against Ohio State, Alabama, Oregon and Miami. In the end, IU was as battle tested as anyone.
But this is the era of the Cignetti Effect, and the IU head coach is seemingly always top of mind among his peers in the coaching profession.
In a conversation this week about nonconference scheduling, Texas’ Steve Sarkisian brought up the IU coach without being specifically asked about him.
And Sarkisian’s comments about Cignetti came across somewhat backhanded.
“There’s a lot of ways to find the path to make it,” Sarkisian told Greg McElroy on Always College Football. “Curt Cignetti, an amazing job at Indiana. What he’s done the last two years, there’s not a guy in our profession that can’t say, ‘What an unbelievable job.’ The way he did it has been somewhat unconventional with the sixth-year seniors, the transfers, the veteran group, the way they practice. All those things. But one thing in there, he adjusted their schedule, too. They’ve got a fresh team, they’re playing a lot of players early in the year, they’re a happy team.
“We can’t want to adopt the ‘Indiana Way’ but then, not adopt all of the ‘Indiana Way.’ But other people now are starting to follow suit. So to Coach Cignetti’s credit, everybody wants to impact our sport in some way, shape or form in a positive way. He’s impacting people because people now are starting to adjust their non-conference schedules because they’re seeing the value of another win as opposed to the value of the strength of your schedule.”
Let’s be clear here. Indiana was supposed to play Louisville away and home in 2024 and 2025, respectively. Those games were canceled by IU in 2023 when Tom Allen was still the head coach, and they were originally scheduled years earlier when the Big Ten mandated a Power 4 nonconference game.
Could Cignetti have found a Power 4 team to add in the last minute to the 2024 and 2025 schedules? Maybe. But he was right at the time — there was really no reason to make the schedule more difficult than what the majority of SEC teams were doing. And Indiana would go on to cancel a 2027/2028 home-and-home series against Virginia.
To his credit, Sarkisian just wants to see a more equitable approach to nonconference scheduling so the College Football Playoff selection process has more clarity.
“How do we find equity in strength of schedule or reward those teams that are playing that strength of schedule?” Sarkisian said. “Because that’s what the public wants. The public wants to see these great games. … But yet, if the juice isn’t worth the squeeze at the end, that’s a big risk that we all are deciding to take to play that game.”
And to be fair, while Cignetti’s posture was correct a year ago, the SEC’s move to a mandatory 10 Power 4 games now means the Big Ten should follow suit and against require a Power 4 nonconference opponent.
Where we’ll land is anyone’s guess in this topsy-turvy era of the sport.
But one thing we can be sure of — Curt Cignetti will be on top of minds, and at the center of the debate.
Because this is the era of the Cignetti Effect.
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