LOS ANGELES — Right before stepping into the tunnel on Oct. 19, 2024, Aiden Fisher snuck a peak into the crowd.
Memorial Stadium in Bloomington, Indiana — the home of the Hoosiers team that has traditionally struggled in the Big Ten conference and had taken a very clear backseat to the historic basketball program that plays right next door — was completely sold out for the first time in years.
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More than 53,000 people had packed the stadium for just the sixth time over the past decade, ready to watch the Hoosiers take on Nebraska.
“When you walk out through our stadium, there’s a window you can kind of see out before you get to the tunnel. You just see all the towels waving, not a single seat was open,” the Indiana linebacker said with a smile on Tuesday. “It’s just special to be a part of.”
Since then, that’s been the standard in Bloomington. And now, 14 months later, Fisher and No. 1 Indiana are just days away from taking on Alabama in the Rose Bowl in the quarterfinals of the College Football Playoff.
A win on Tuesday would not only be historic. It would also lock in the fact that Indiana football is legitimate, which is something that seemed almost impossible just a few years ago. The last two seasons under head coach Curt Cignetti, in which they have gone an incredible 24-2, wouldn’t be a fluke — if that’s something that is even still up for debate.
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“Last year, I know there was still a lot of doubt,” linebacker Isaiah Jones said. “Maybe it was a one-hit wonder … We don’t need everybody else believing in us. But after this year, it’s really kind of cemented Indiana … This isn’t just a two-year thing and it’s done after that. Coach Cignetti will be here, all these coaches will be here. Indiana football is here, and it’s something to last.”
Indiana had already locked down Curt Cignetti to a long-term deal even before the Hoosiers reached their second straight College Football Playoffs. (Michael Hickey/Getty Images)
(Michael Hickey via Getty Images)
Curt Cignetti’s revival at Indiana
Before Cignetti arrived in Bloomington from James Madison in 2024, Indiana football wasn’t in a good place.
The program was coming off of a 3-9 season under coach Tom Allen, who managed just one true winning season in his seven years with the program. They went 6-2 during the shortened COVID-19 season in 2020, too, but then won just two games the following year. When Allen led the Hoosiers to an 8-5 finish in 2019, it marked the program’s most wins since the 1993 campaign.
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Cignetti immediately turned the Hoosiers around. They went 11-2 in his first season, which marked the winningest-campaign in school history, and reached the College Football Playoff for the first time, though they fell to Notre Dame in the first round. Their run stunned just about everybody.
But Jones, who spent two seasons at Indiana before Cignetti arrived, noticed the change in the program instantly. Cignetti’s opening press conference was different.
“Not cocky, but confident,” Jones said of that opening impression. “And I like that. Why would you not want to play for a coach that’s confident in his players and believes in his players. It’s not a facade, either, when he’s in front of the media. He believes in us, and that makes us want to play so much harder for him and leave it out on the field.”
This season was no different. The Hoosiers, behind Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Fernando Mendoza, went a perfect 13-0. They beat then-top-ranked Ohio State in the Big Ten championship game, too, which gave the Hoosiers their first conference title since the 1960s and secured the No. 1 seed in the College Football Playoffs. Outside of a scare against Penn State, it was a very dominant campaign from start to finish.
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Naturally, Indiana and Cignetti reached a new eight-year, $93 million contract extension in October. He’s now earning about $11.6 million a season, which makes him one of the highest-paid coaches in the country.
“Everybody wants to talk about how they went from a losing record to making the playoffs two years in a row,” Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson said. “It is very, very impressive and remarkable, honestly. The turnaround they’ve had, just how disciplined they are. I know coach Cignetti talks about coach [Nick] Saban a lot, so I’m sure the values and principles of the program are very similar to Alabama.”
That discipline is exactly what Jones described.
“I’m not knocking the first two years [I was here] … but the biggest thing for me here, we don’t do anything that’s not going to benefit us winning,” Jones said. “There’s no like, fake hurrah, there’s none of this.
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“We might not go do all the fun team events, because none of that benefits us on Saturday. Instead of going and doing something fun as a team, we’ll get the linebackers together and watch an hour and a half of film … We’re here to win games on Saturday, we’re not here for the fun, media photo shoots, and all that.”
What will Indiana turn into?
Regardless of what happens on Thursday afternoon, or in the rest of the playoffs, Cignetti has already gotten the Hoosiers to a much, much better place.
They’ve now won double digit games in back-to-back seasons, produced a Heisman Trophy winner for the first time and is once again in a spot to legitimately compete for a national championship. That would change everything. Already, the impact of these two seasons will spill over into the future.
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With Cignetti locked down, there’s no telling where Indiana football can go — especially if he picks up right where they left off just a few weeks ago in Indianapolis.
But, at least for now, Cignetti doesn’t seem to care much about the impact he’s made. He’s focused on one thing, and one thing only.
“It’s great. There’s a lot of excitement,” he said about his program. “But we’re here to play in a playoff game and our 100% focus is on the here and now.”
