Five Unbelievable Facts About Curt Cignetti and Indiana Football

How did we get here?

Curt Cignetti has done what no one has ever done at Indiana. / Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

Curt Cignetti and Indiana play in the Peach Bowl on Friday night with a trip to the College Football Playoff championship game on the line. Considering where Cignetti and the Hoosiers were very recently, that is wild.

At 14-0 Indiana hasn't seen this kind of success... ever. And it was just a short time ago that Cignetti was coaching at a school you've probably never heard of. Here are five truly wild facts about the coach and the school that should put the Hoosiers' improbable run into perspective.

Curt Cignetti Before Indiana

Cignetti began his head coaching career at IUP in 2011 and spent 11 seasons coaching in the FCS subdivision before James Madison moved from the Colonial Athletic Association to the Sun Belt. Cignetti went 53-17 at Indiana University of Pennsylvania which is in Indiana, Pennsylvania before he accepted a job at Elon where he went 14-9 in two seasons before taking moving to James Madison University.

Which is to say he went from going 6-5 at Football Championship Subdivision school Elon in 2018 to the College Football Playoff semifinals in 2025.

Indiana's Resume Before Curt Cignetti

The Hoosiers football program has existed since 1899. In 127 seasons they have gone 508-691-38.

Until this season, the Hoosiers hadn't won the Big 10 in nearly 60 years. Their only Big 10 championships came in '67 and '45. In the 30 seasons between 1994 and 2023 they had finished .500 or better in Big 10 play three times.

They have now won the Big 10 more recently than the school's basketball team.

At 14-0, they'll finish with zero or one loses on their record this season. This is just the fourth time this has happened. In 1905 they went 8-1-1. In 1910 they went 6-1. In 1945 they went 9-0-1. During all three of those seasons the Big 10 was still the Western Conference.

Curt Cignetti's Resume at Indiana

Cignetti took over a team that went 3-9 in 2023 and immediately had the first 11-win season in school history. Now they're 14-0 which means the Hoosiers are 25-2 under Cignetti. HIs predecessor, Tom Allen, won 33 games in eight seasons.

After two seasons he has the ninth most wins in school history. If Indiana has a decent 2026 season he'll move into the top four. He's 16 wins behind Lee Corso for third most wins in school history.

In two seasons he has accounted for five percent of the wins in program history.

Indiana Football Had Never Won Double-Digit Games

Until Cignetti's first season with Indiana, the school had never won 10 games in a season in the program's 125-year history. They had won nine games twice, first in 1945 and most recently in 1967.

Indiana's Bowl Game History

Friday's Peach Bowl will be just the 14th bowl game appearance in the school's history. The win over Alabama in the Rose Bowl was Indiana's fourth bowl win ever. Indiana hadn't won a bowl game since the Copper Bowl in 1991. Cignetti is currently tied for second all-time in bowl wins at Indiana with Lee Corso, who won the Holiday Bowl in 1979.

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