Indiana’s Curt Cignetti On Nonconference Scheduling: ‘I Like Winning Ball Games’

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – In short order in 2024, Indiana football coach Curt Cignetti put his imprint on the Hoosiers football program in profound ways.

The culture Cignetti fostered led to an 11-2 season and a surprise College Football Playoff berth. Cignetti put maximum effort into changing the mindset within the team and the fanbase. He tried to make Indiana fans understand what it takes to support a winning program.

One thing Cignetti had no control over in 2024 was the nonconference schedule. The Big Ten schedule is determined by the league office and is beyond any school’s control. The nonconference schedule, however, is determined by the individual schools, and those contracts are often agreed upon years in advance.

Given that Cignetti had little to no say over the 2024 schedule, what would his scheduling philosophy be for the Hoosiers going forward?

“I like winning ball games. I think most coaches do. I mean, we play nine Big Ten Conference games, which is more than most the other conferences,” Cignetti said during a Zoom meeting with the media on Wednesday.

The Big Ten’s nine-game conference schedule certainly influences scheduling, and Indiana isn’t alone among Big Ten schools in avoiding name-brand schools when playing out-of-conference opponents.

In 2025, Indiana will play Old Dominion, Kennesaw State and Indiana State. The Hoosiers are one of six Big Ten schools – Maryland, Northwestern, Penn State, Rutgers and Washington are the others – that don’t have a Power Four conference team on their nonconference slate.

The philosophy is that the Big Ten schedule is challenging enough without adding more challenging games. In 2024 and 2025, Indiana was supposed to play Louisville, but that original three-game contract was canceled after one game was played due in part to the challenge of navigating the nine-game Big Ten slate.

However, among the schools that don’t play a Power Four team in 2025, Indiana and Penn State are the only ones entering the 2025 season harboring CFP expectations. Other schools in the Big Ten that have CFP expectations – Michigan, Ohio State, Oregon – have gone a different way with their nonconference scheduling as they play at least one Power 4 opponent.

“I'm going to play who's on the schedule. And I think we got Notre Dame coming up down the road. But I'm going to play who's on the schedule,” Cignetti said.

Here are Indiana’s future nonconference opponents, per FBschedules.com:

2025: Old Dominion (Aug. 30), Kennesaw State (Sept. 6), Indiana State (Sept. 13)
2026: Colorado State (Sept. 5), at Connecticut (Sept. 26)
2027: at Virginia (Sept. 4), Indiana State (Sept. 11), Massachusetts (Sept. 18)
2028: Eastern Michigan (Sept. 9), Virginia (Sept. 16)
2029: Ball State (Sept. 1), Western Kentucky (Sept. 15)
2030: at Notre Dame (Aug. 31)
2031: Notre Dame (Sept. 27)

In 2024, Indiana played and defeated Florida International, Western Illinois and Charlotte. For much of the season, those weak nonconference opponents contributed to Indiana having one of the worst strength-of-schedule rankings in FBS for much of the season.

Ultimately, Indiana’s weak nonconference schedule didn’t hurt the Hoosiers. Indiana compiled enough victories in Big Ten play – the Hoosiers were 8-1 – so the nonconference games didn’t matter as much. In the final College Football Playoff rankings, Indiana was ranked No. 8 and the Hoosiers were the second-last at-large team included.

However, Indiana also benefited from good fortune as far as results from other conferences were concerned.

The germane time period to ponder the what if’s are games played on Nov. 23, 2024. Then-No. 5 Indiana lost 38-15 at Ohio State. On that same day, No. 7 Alabama was upset at Oklahoma and No. 9 Ole Miss lost at unranked Florida.

After those games, Indiana dropped to No. 10 in the CFP rankings, the last at-large team in the rankings that week. Both Alabama and Ole Miss had two more losses than the Hoosiers did coming out of those Nov. 23 games. Yet they were still only ranked three spots (Alabama) and four spots (Ole Miss) behind Indiana, respectively.

Due in part to its poor nonconference schedule, what would Indiana’s CFP fate had been if Alabama, Ole Miss or Miami (who lost one week later at Syracuse) had avoided upsets? We’ll never know, of course … unless that scenario plays out again in the future.

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