"I Plan On Retiring as a Hoosier" - Sorry Penn State, Curt Cignetti Just Signed an 8-Year, $11.6M/yr Deal With Indiana

What a day for Indiana. What a day for Curt Cignetti. What a day for his wife Manette. What day for college football. In the year 2025, one of the top 5 highest paid coaches in college football works for the Indiana Hoosiers. 

In less than 2 years, Curt Cignetti is already being paid more money to coach the Indiana Hoosier than James Franklin was ever paid to coach Penn State. Sorry, Penn State. That was a low blow. But god damn. What a world. 

I'm sure Curt Cignetti was already planning to re-sign with Indiana anyways. He's said nothing but things that would give Indiana fans reason to believe he wants to coach there for the long haul. But you'd be crazy to take a college football coach at his word when it comes to things like that. But Curt Cignetti is different. Unlike most college football coaches, Curt Cignetti is a normal person is the sense of - he sees how much Indiana loves him… how much they've embraced him… and he thought to himself, "Why would I ever leave this place?"

Curt Cignetti is such a singularly focused win-right-now-at-all-costs psychopath, that you just know he saw Penn State's job open up… that he saw the buzz and the rumors surrounding his name and the Penn State job… and he thought to himself, "You know what would get Indiana University even more fired up about our football program than they already are? If I committed to 8 more years on a Thursday afternoon."

I'm sure opportunity to lock himself in for $11.6M a year didn't hurt either. And that probably wouldn't have came so fast without other premier college football jobs opening up. But regardless, I bet Indiana was never actually in danger of losing Cignetti. Penn State firing James Franklin mid-season just accelerated the process. And it gave Cignetti another piece of ammunition to work with. He saw the Penn State opening as a potential distraction for his football team, and he nip that shit in the bud within a week's time. 

It wasn't just Penn State either. Billy Napier is all but fired at Florida. We could be approaching an off-season with a record number of big time schools looking for new head coaches. Off the top of my head, Penn State, Florida, Florida State, UCLA, Wisconsin, Michigan, Michigan State, North Carolina, Virginia Tech, Arkansas, South Carolina, Kentucky, Auburn, Stanford… even Clemson isn't out of the realm of possibility… all of those school are liable to go through a coaching search this offseason (if not already in the midst of one). But Curt Cignetti saw all that opportunity to coach all those premier programs and said, "Fuck your tradition of excellence. Indiana has as much money as all of you. I'll just sign here for 8 more years, make as much money as anyone, and get the whole fan base even more gassed than they already were."

Indiana doesn't deserve Curt Cignetti. Nobody deserves Curt Cignetti. Curt Cignetti is doing something almost unprecedented in college football (look up what Bill Snyder did for Kansas State in the 1990's… it's pretty impressive). But Cignetti is turning college football on its head, and forcing schools across the country into having IMPOSSIBLE expectations for their head coaches moving forward. 

What time to be a Hoosiers fan.