‘Humble and Hungry’: Indiana Is not Settling Underneath Curt Cignetti

LAS VEGAS — Within the instant aftermath of Indiana’s season-ending loss to Notre Dame in the course of the opening spherical of final yr’s School Soccer Playoff, its lightning rod head coach, Curt Cignetti, trudged into the visiting media room at Notre Dame Stadium with hole guts and wounded satisfaction. 

For the higher a part of 5 months, Cignetti and his gamers had reworked into nationwide darlings whereas authoring one of many biggest turnarounds the game has ever seen. However on this December night in South Bend, because the 12-team format was unveiled for the primary time, the Hoosiers endured a one-sided whipping. All that separated Cignetti & Co. from a extra humiliating scoreline had been two late touchdowns as soon as the result had lengthy been secured.  

“The toughest factor on an evening like that is saying ‘goodbye’ to your children,” Cignetti stated to start the information convention after sharing a postgame embrace along with his household. “They’re hurting as a result of their previous man acquired his a– kicked.”

The vacancy of all of it transported Cignetti again to a lowly second from 2011, throughout his first season as a collegiate head coach, when he allowed a equally painful defeat to hover over his program, a lot to the detriment of everybody concerned. Then in cost at IUP — that’s Indiana College of Pennsylvania for anybody unfamiliar with Division II soccer — Cignetti wallowed within the wake of a 20-6 loss to Slippery Rock through which the Crimson Hawks’ quarterbacks mixed to throw 4 interceptions. It gnawed at him for days. 

“I simply couldn’t let it go,” Cignetti stated when retelling the story at Large Ten Media Days final month. “And it damage us the following couple of weeks, too, ? You’ll be able to’t let this one [against Notre Dame] damage you. It’s over, you file the teachings away, you study and also you develop from it.”

That was the message Cignetti and his gamers conveyed to reporters contained in the South Seas Ballroom at Mandalay Bay, the place way more consideration was paid to the Hoosiers than anyone may have imagined previous to final yr’s outstanding ascendance. By profitable 11 video games for the primary time in class historical past and incomes an at-large berth within the School Soccer Playoff — one thing conventional powers like Miami and Florida nonetheless haven’t finished — Indiana catapulted itself to a degree of relevance usually reserved for the varsity’s basketball program, a five-time nationwide champion. And with that sort of consideration comes an intoxicating mix of scrutiny and expectation most regularly bestowed upon groups and coaches for whom profitable is an annual custom. 

How shut Cignetti can come to replicating what occurred in 2024, when the one defeats Indiana suffered had been in opposition to Notre Dame and Ohio State, two groups that went on to achieve the nationwide championship recreation, might be among the many Large Ten’s most fascinating storylines this fall. That the Hoosiers had been picked sixth in each preseason league polls circulated final month won’t preclude them from being comfortably included within the nationwide prime 25 when the preseason AP Ballot surfaces subsequent week, one thing that has solely occurred as soon as since 1969 and solely 3 times general.

However in typical grandiose Cignetti vogue, the concept of merely matching a marketing campaign he described as “the perfect season in Indiana historical past” isn’t lofty sufficient for his liking. 

“I get questions [about] ‘How are you going to maintain it?’” Cignetti stated. “We’re not trying to maintain it. We’re trying to enhance it. And the way in which you do that’s by having the fitting individuals on the bus, upstairs within the coaches’ places of work, downstairs within the locker room. Having a blueprint plan and course of, excessive requirements of expectations [and] by no means reducing your requirements.”

Head coach Curt Cignetti of the Indiana Hoosiers reacts in the course of the fourth quarter in opposition to Michigan. (Photograph by Justin Casterline/Getty Pictures)

For Cignetti, bettering relatively than sustaining started with intense player-retention efforts sought to each dissuade key contributors from coming into the switch portal whereas concurrently rewarding veterans who handed on the NFL Draft to spend one other yr at Indiana. The previous was profitable sufficient that Cignetti stated the Hoosiers didn’t lose “a single participant that we wished to maintain,” regardless that 27 gamers wound up exiting this system, together with 5 who ended up at Energy 4 colleges — tight finish Sam West (Mississippi State); offensive sort out Austin Barrett (Iowa State); cornerback Jamier Johnson (UCLA); quarterback Tayven Jackson (UCF); broad receiver Donaven McCulley (Michigan). McCulley was the highest-rated former Hoosier within the portal at No. 285 general, in keeping with 247Sports. 

Indiana’s portal technique was buoyed by robust monetary affords to gamers who might need been chosen within the center or late rounds of the draft. Main receiver Elijah Sarratt, who caught 53 passes for 957 yards and eight touchdowns, stated he and Cignetti reached a financial settlement shortly after the loss to Notre Dame that cemented his resolution to return. The Hoosiers additionally introduced again three potential draft picks on protection in edge rusher Mikail Kamara (nation-leading 68 quarterback pressures), inside linebacker Aiden Fisher (team-high 118 tackles) and cornerback D’Angelo Ponds (first-team All-Large Ten). 

Indiana DE Mikail Kamara #6 pressures Michigan QB Davis Warren #16 in the course of the first half at Memorial Stadium. (Photograph by Justin Casterline/Getty Pictures)

“I believe final yr [the mindset] was to go in right here and win a pair video games, ?” Kamara stated. “Perhaps go and win a bowl recreation. If we’re being fairly trustworthy, I believe that was sort of the purpose. And as soon as we began rolling, the purpose began to alter a bit of bit. So I believe the way in which that it modified is we anticipated to win video games and we anticipated to win video games huge. And we anticipated to make the playoffs and attempt to go to the nationwide championship, proper? 

“So I believe the distinction is that mindset that we had possibly halfway, possibly within the again finish of the season, is the mindset that we now have going into the primary recreation this season: Win a championship and that’s it.”

Predictably, that mindset begins with Cignetti himself and a problem the pinnacle coach issued to everybody inside Indiana’s program. No matter what the skin world is saying concerning the Hoosiers — and lots of analysts imagine they may very well be within the combine for a second consecutive playoff berth — Cignetti needs them to strategy every day “humble and hungry versus noise and litter,” which implies understanding that final yr’s success ensures Indiana nothing in 2025 and past. 

His message is already being carried out by a few of the workforce’s greatest gamers, a handful of whom are nonetheless holdovers from Cignetti’s final job at James Madison and adopted him to assist overhaul the tradition at Indiana. For Kamara, who enters 2025 as one of many convention’s most feared edge rushers, that has meant bettering his conditioning and physique composition in order that he can play to his full potential for all 4 quarters, an enchancment he believed was mandatory after admitting he light late in video games final yr. For Sarratt, whose purpose is to turn into a first-round choose in subsequent yr’s NFL Draft, that has meant shoring up his blocking, sharpening his route working and changing into extra constant as a go catcher to keep away from the premature drops that resulted in him falling simply in need of 1,000 yards — a statistic that he stated nonetheless irks him. 

“We don’t wish to go to the School Soccer Playoff and lose in Spherical 1 once more,” Sarratt stated. “That’s not the purpose. The purpose is to win a nationwide championship. That’s what we’re working onerous to do each single day.”

Indiana WR Elijah Sarratt (13) celebrates after scoring a landing throughout a recreation in opposition to Michigan. (Photograph by Jeremy Hogan/SOPA Pictures/LightRocket by way of Getty Pictures)

Their perception that Indiana is a program able to contending for the playoff most seasons started trickling all the way down to the workforce’s newcomers throughout spring follow, the place Cignetti welcomed a highschool recruiting class that ranked forty ninth nationally and a switch portal class that ranked twenty fifth nationally — two spots behind Texas and one spot behind Ohio State. The additions of high-profile transfers like former Cal quarterback Fernando Mendoza (No. 22 switch, No. 4 QB), former Notre Dame offensive lineman Pat Coogan (No. 138 switch, No. 9 IOL) and former Maryland tailback Roman Hemby (No. 236 switch, No. 15 RB), all of whom will begin for Indiana in 2025, are a direct results of this system’s headline-generating trajectory in 2024. 

In listening to the Hoosiers converse at Large Ten Media Days, the place they exuded way more confidence than Indiana gamers of yore, any concern Cignetti might need had a few hangover from the loss to Notre Dame looks like it may be safely erased. They filed these classes away, they’ve realized, they usually’ve grown — simply as Cignetti did when he misplaced to Slippery Rock so a few years earlier than. 

“In case you are resting in your laurels,” Cignetti stated, “and you bought the nice and cozy fuzzies primarily based on what social media is telling you, or what you learn on social media, and also you suppose it is simply going to occur once more as a result of it occurred earlier than, [then] you ain’t going to be a really glad camper when the season is over. My job is to ensure that would not occur. 

“I do know I acquired to enhance in a variety of methods, however I am actually good at retaining the principle factor the principle factor and being a watchdog for complacency and stomping it out. After we go to camp and we prepare for that first recreation, these guys might be pondering like we’d like them to suppose.”

And meaning dreaming of a nationwide championship. 

Michael Cohen covers faculty soccer and faculty basketball for FOX Sports activities. Observe him at @Michael_Cohen13.

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