“Made It Clear”: Indiana's Curt Cignetti Wastes No Time Clarifying His NFL Coaching Aspirations
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Curt Cignetti has spent the last two years doing something that usually gets a coach noticed by the NFL. He took Indiana from a program that had spent years near the bottom of the sport to a national championship. Cignetti, though, has never sounded particularly interested in making that jump.
“Made it clear that I’m kind of a college football guy,” Cignetti said on Sports Illustrated’sAugust 21 podcast. “I saw some of that out there, and yeah, we kind of put that out there. So it’s just the way I kind of do things. Maybe a unicorn, a little bit like that. But after kind of year one, we made the statement that this is where we wanted to be, and had to do it again in year two.”
Back in January, when Indiana was preparing to play Miami for the national championship, he gave a much longer answer about his history with the NFL. He revealed that he had actually turned down an opportunity to join the Green Bay Packers in 2000, when Brett Favre was still in his prime. He said that was when he decided college football was where he wanted to stay.
Most coaches who build a program as quickly as Cignetti did at Indiana eventually get asked about the NFL. His name was floated around during the 2025-26 coaching cycle, but he shut that down before Indiana’s title game. At the time, he said, “I’m not an NFL guy.” There is also a practical reason for him to stay put.
“You know, Pam, our president, Whitten, she loves football,” Cignetti said. “And Scott Dolson is a great AD, and we love the setting and the people, and so let’s go.”
Indiana rewarded Cignetti with a massive contract after his championship run. His updated deal is worth $105.6 million over eight years, or $13.2 million per year on average, and runs through 2033. That puts him among the highest-paid coaches in college football. More importantly, Cignetti genuinely enjoys his time at Bloomington.
Cignetti has spent decades building his career around college football. He worked his way through programs including NC State, Alabama, IUP, and James Madison before taking the Indiana job. At JMU, he went 52-9 in five seasons. In Indiana, he has turned that same formula into something much bigger.
The Indiana head coach has already done the hardest part. He made the Hoosiers believe that they could actually be a football school. And Indiana finally has the pieces that allow a great head coach to stay great for a long time. Maybe Cignetti is chasing what coaches like Nick Saban accomplished at Alabama: build a dynasty.
Cignetti’s first Indiana team was built heavily through the transfer portal. Now the program isstarting to attract players without relying entirely on the same formula. Cignetti also has something Saban always understood: staff continuity. Is this the beginning of a great dynasty in the Big 10?
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