"I Win. Google Me" - Curt Cignetti Has An Elite Strategy For Bringing Recruits To Indiana

I won't act like I'm some expert on James Madison football. I know they had an incredibly successful year this year, and Coach Curt Cignetti became one of the hottest names in the sport. He ultimately ended up in Indiana after Indiana fired Tom Allen. Indiana hasn't won an outright Big Ten championship since 1945, but based on the bravado that Cignetti is going into his tenure with, you'd think he's taking over at Alabama. It's genuinely entertaining.

The Big Ten is expanding next season. What I think will end up happening is that all of these teams in the Big Ten that played in the west and got by on toughness and field position are going to get completely exposed when they play teams that have actual athletes. A school like Iowa, being a ten-win team, will be a thing of the past. It's going to be tough sledding for a school like Indiana, but don't tell this guy. The Big Ten needs a heel. I don't know how much of this response with sarcasm, but if he legitimately thinks that he will pull in big recruits at Indiana just because he wins, he will be in for a difficult time. 

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I don't know how much of this is shtick and how much of this he actually believes. Maybe Cignett is a genuine lunatic who thinks that Michigan and Ohio State sucks and Indiana is destined to be the class of the Big Ten. Since he arrived on campus at Bloomington, Cignetti has guaranteed that Indiana will be in the Big Ten championship game next year. He stood in the middle of Assembly Hall and shit-talked other teams in the Big Ten, and now he's acting as if he has a loaded résumé. I love it. Remember that this guy is 62 years old and has just now found his way into a job with a Power 5 team. Michigan has lost to Indiana once since the Reagan administration, and that was in the Covid year. Give me coaches who are fun to beat. Everyone's so goddamn nice to each other nowadays. It makes me sick.