Curt Cignetti Is Single-Handedly Rewriting The Coaching Timetable

The five-year rebuild is a thing of the past thanks to Coach Cig

Indiana Hoosiers head coach Curt Cignetti is on a heater.

Seriously, the man they affectionately refer to as “Coach Cig” is so hot right now that he’s somehow made Bloomington, Indiana, the center of the college football world.

I have mentioned before how I thought Cignetti was the best coach in college football, given what he has done relative to his peers at more tradition-rich institutions, and it would appear as though others are starting to pick up what I’ve been putting down.

What is truly incredible about Coach Cig’s run at Indiana is how quickly he changed the fortunes of a once-desolate football program and turned them into a destination.

And while that is good news for Hoosiers fans, it spells doom for the “program builder” coaches across America.

The Death Of The “Rebuild”

The prevailing thought used to be that a rebuild could take anywhere from three to five years.

Patience was preached by both coach and AD alike, while fans often acquiesced.

What Cignetti is doing at Indiana is single-handedly rewriting the coaching timetable, and we are already seeing the effects take place in real time.

You think UCLA and Penn State saw what was happening in their own conference with a program with half the resources they have and said, “Why can’t we do that?”

For the Bruins, they gave their guy, DeShaun Foster, the axe after less than two full years in Los Angeles, which may seem harsh, but Indiana just showed them the blueprint of how to quickly turn things around at your program, and it looks like those changes are already taking effect.

Penn State, conversely, was stuck in a rut, trying the same thing over and over without getting their desired results.

Their hope is that by making some changes of their own, they can capture the same lightning in a bottle that is currently being harnessed by their fellow Big Ten brethren a couple of states to the west.

Curt Cignetti’s out-of-the-box success isn’t entirely unprecedented.

Schools have seen meteoric rises in the first two years of a new coaching regime.

However, more often than not, those have either come from someone who was handed the keys to a ready-made Death Star (think Larry Coker at Miami in 2001), or who took over a steady operation and rode a historic season before crashing back down to Earth (Gene Chizik at Auburn in 2010).

No one has ever taken a job so historically bereft of resources and history and had them punching above their weight class this quickly.

For reference, in the previous five seasons prior to Cignetti’s arrival in Bloomington, the Hoosiers had a win percentage of .404, which includes their uncharacteristically stellar 6-2 COVID season with current Atlanta Falcons QB Michael Penix under center.

Through just a season and a half, Cignetti has a .900 win percentage, and is doing so with a roster that is routinely dwarfed in terms of talent profile and blue-chip ratio.

No More Excuses

The excuses for coaches who can’t replicate a turnaround like Cignetti are gone.

The transfer portal exists. And that, coupled with NIL and profit sharing, has made it easier than ever to flip a roster overnight.

No more five-year rebuilds. No more “maybe next year.”

Patience is a thing of the past.

And whether that is a positive or a negative remains to be seen.

But for right now, there is no argument that Curt Cignetti is taking the college football world by storm, and, in the process, challenging what it means to restore a program in record time.