- - Curt Cignetti's Indiana success makes this a dirty word for coaches

Blake Toppmeyer, USA TODAYJanuary 13, 2026 at 3:08 AM

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Curt Cignetti's Indiana success makes this a dirty word for coaches

These are tough times for college football excuse makers. These are choppy waters for coaches who think they’ll plot the slow route to success.

Patience has become like a four-letter word in Sunday School. Don’t say it, because nobody wants to hear it.

When Curt Cignetti needed just two years to take Indiana from the pit to the national championship game, he incinerated any lingering vestiges of the idea coaches must be allowed to implement a five-year plan before they’re harshly evaluated. He shoved a sock in the mouth of every underachieving coach who’d otherwise like to say, “Wait ’til I get some more of my recruits in here.”

We can debate how this happened. Clearly, Cignetti knows ball. Injecting transfers helped, including those he brought with him from James Madison. He developed some leftovers he inherited. He hit a home run with transfer quarterback Fernando Mendoza.

Cignetti built a smart, veteran team that does not beat itself with blunders, penalties or turnovers, while it beats up opponents. Along the way, he invigorated the nation’s largest alumni base. That’s useful in an NIL era.

Beyond how it happened, though, is what Cignetti’s success means for his profession.

Cignetti’s success ushers in even greater expectation of coaching success at a microwavable rate of efficiency. There’s never been a more perilous time to be a loser proclaiming he’s on the verge of becoming a winner. Ask Hugh Freeze about that.

“I wish I could ask for patience,” Freeze said in November, hours before Auburn fired him, “but that's not really something people want to give in this day and time.”

I’m not sure anyone ever wanted to wait several years to see results. Cignetti proved you no longer have to wait, not in this era of NIL and transfer free agency.

Curt Cignetti effect: Patience is loser's battle cry

As Indiana donor Mark Cuban aptly put it, Cignetti ushered Indiana “from the outhouse to the penthouse.” He made it so that if your coach resides in the outhouse after two or three seasons, he probably just stinks.

Freeze spent three years telling Auburn he was close. Maybe, he was. More likely, he wasn’t. Either way, it didn’t matter. Freeze couldn’t expect his bosses or boosters to accept being “close” to competence in Year 3 at Auburn, not when Indiana’s coach is undefeated in his second season.

Boosters and fans whose dollars fund the roster demand either return on investment or a head on a platter. Also, the more accessible the playoff becomes, the less that a reputable program’s backers are willing to accept a trip to the Pinstripe Bowl. James Franklin can attest to that.

On top of all of that, there’s this Cignetti effect. He’s performing like patience is a loser’s battle cry. In two years, he turned one of America’s worst programs into a super squad, capable of wrecking playoff teams by more than 30 points.

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Cignetti’s success gives programs that never tasted glory a reason to believe in (and invest in) the possibilities — and to spit out mediocrity and try again with someone else.

Probably, a coach should still be permitted a one-year honeymoon. To be fair, Cignettis don’t grow on trees. But, by Year 2, if no signs of life are detected, then your coach probably isn’t the guy. If the program remains listless in Year 3, then he’s definitely not the guy. Be done with it.

Indiana success cranks up pressure on ... Bill Belichick

As I’m beginning to call it, there was the time before Cignetti, B.C., and the time after Cignetti, A.C.

B.C., fans of Kentucky or Rutgers or Purdue or Wake Forest who demanded premier performance were at risk of being declared nutty. If you rooted for North Carolina and asked, “Why not us?” while Alabama ripped off national championships armed with a three-deep of the nation’s best talent, there was an obvious answer to that.

Now, A.C., it’s acceptable for fans from Indiana to Vanderbilt to ask that question. It’s reasonable to demand a pulse be present within two seasons.

That means you, Bill Belichick. His first season went splat. He cannot whiff again. If Cigs can get a basketball school to a national championship in Year 2, then Beli ball must improve next season to justify bringing him back in 2027.

Cignetti’s success dials up pressure on Purdue’s second-year coach Barry Odom. It makes Michigan State look rational for parting with Jonathan Smith after two bad seasons. It makes me wonder why Wisconsin wasted time bringing back Luke Fickell, after three straight bum years.

Inside the SEC, six new coaches were hired. None of them better mention the word patience.

In B.C., and in the time before NIL and transfer free agency, Dabo Swinney was the portrait of what patience could do. He went 6-7 in his second full season. Swinney got it rolling in Year 3, when he began a long stretch of double-digit-win seasons. He delivered his first national title in his eighth season.

Gary Pinkel never won a national title, but he became another testament of patience. Missouri suffered losing records in three of Pinkel’s first four seasons. Missouri let it ride, and Pinkel became the winningest coach in Tigers history, while serving some of their greatest moments.

Miami provides a present-day portrait of patience paying off.

Mario Cristobal went 12-13 through two seasons. He got Miami to 10 wins last year. Then, the past few months, came a Year 4 breakthrough.

If a coach requires a dose of patience, he better pair patience with progress, as Cristobal did. Treading water or win-loss regression is a recipe for a swift firing.

Cignetti never asked for any patience. He never thought he needed any.

“We've been adamant,” Cignetti said, shortly after Indiana hired him, “that we're going to win, we're going to win this year, and we're going to change the brand.”

Cignetti backed up that talk. In doing so, he sped up the clock for his peers. He removed the P-word from a new coach’s vocabulary. That word died when the calendar turned from B.C. to A.C.

Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network's senior national college football columnist. Email him at [email protected] and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Curt Cignetti's Indiana football success makes every coach's job harder

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