There was a time when a young Curt Cignetti felt the cards were stacked a bit against the have nots.
Before the transfer portal, before NIL, programs like Alabama, Ohio State, and others could simply stack talent.
Cignetti got an early taste of that as an assistant coach at Rice, dealing with the likes of Texas, Texas A&M, Arkansas and others.
“I was coaching the Southwest Conference. I was 23 years old. That was a premier conference back then,” Cignetti said on the Bison Drop podcast. “I was with some teams that weren’t very good for a while. And I always thought it was all about players.”
It’s well documented, Cignetti has never had a losing season as a head coach. He’s 146-37 overall, including 27-2 at IU over the last two seasons.
But what if transfer portal wasn’t available when Cignetti arrived at IU? What if NIL wasn’t a thing?
As good as Cignetti is, at the very least it likely would have taken longer to build Indiana into a College Football Playoff team, let alone a national champion in two years.
There was a time when Indiana’s starters would have struggled against Alabama’s backups. But gone are the days when young players are willing to be buried on the depth chart at a blue blood. Nobody has that kind of depth anymore.
And gone are the days when a school like Indiana, with an opportunity to play for respectable money under good coaches, is an unattractive destination.
The transfer portal has shown us previously overlooked college 5-stars can compete with high school 5-stars. And with the talent flattened out across the country? It contributed to the perfect storm of conditions that allowed a great coach to achieve amazing results in just two years.
“I’ve been a head coach for 15 years. And the rules have changed quite where things have evened out, especially since I’ve come here,” Cignetti said. “You know, coaching counts. I mean, big time. And the more equal the talent, the more coaching counts.”
The conference power shift further illustrates Cignetti’s point.
The Big Ten has won the last three national titles, but that comes immediately on the heels of an era completely dominated by the SEC.
Just before Cignetti became a head coach, he was an assistant on Nick Saban’s staff at Alabama. That was a time when the talent wasn’t evenly dispersed. It was Alabama, Georgia, LSU, Florida, Clemson and Ohio State, with everyone else competing for the scraps.
The result — the SEC won 13 of 17 national titles from 2006 to 2022, with the same cast of characters contending year after year.
But the Big Ten’s expansion and accompanying new television contract also contributed to the change we’ve seen in the sport. It made the league more attractive to both players and coaches alike. In fact, Cignetti has said that the Big Ten’s new media rights deal caught his attention and made Indiana a more attractive landing spot. It took effect just months before his arrival in Bloomington.
“When you look at the two major conferences in college football you’re looking at the SEC and the Big Ten, “Cignetti said. “And I do think there was a day where the SEC was a dominant conference without a doubt.
“The Big Ten made a big move with the TV contract and then came the changes in college football where you could legally pay pay players, and now you’ve got the Big Ten with the last three national championships, and head-to-head doing really well against the SEC.”
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