Curt Cignetti Talks Indiana’s National Title, Mendoza, Sorsby & More w/ Rich

Curt Cignetti was the last interview before his vacation, and he insisted the show saved the best for last. The national champion Indiana head coach was relaxed enough to talk through the title, his quarterback, his long road, and the state of the sport, all before heading to a South Carolina beach house with a vodka tonic, or maybe a little tequila, waiting.

Rich went straight to the wayback machine, to the title game against Miami. Nine minutes left, fourth-and-four on the 12, and Cignetti said there was never any real thought of a field goal. The kicking team only trotted out to buy time for a timeout while the call was ready. "You got to play the win. You got to trust the players," he said, recalling that as a younger coach he was occasionally guilty of playing not to lose. The play wasn't complicated, with RPOs against an advantageous look, and Fernando Mendoza, as he did all year, played his best football with the game on the line.

Cignetti traced Mendoza's rise from Cal, where he liked his talent but saw a quarterback needing pocket-footwork work behind poor protection. Indiana had to beat out Georgia and Miami to land him, and Mendoza built on big moments, a strong first Big Ten game against Illinois, a last-minute win over Iowa, a bounce-back at Oregon, and a Penn State comeback Cignetti said he'd never seen the likes of. The player who comes off geeky in interviews, he stressed, is a lion as a competitor, ferocious and tough. And the genuineness is real. Mendoza is deep and intelligent, idolized Tom Brady, and in 45 years of coaching Cignetti has never been around anyone who prepared like him. He said he learned from Mendoza, citing the bottomless level of detail and the toughness that pulled the team together.

The conversation turned personal, to Cignetti's decision years ago to leave Nick Saban's Alabama staff for Division II Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He'd known since third grade he wanted to be a head coach, and he was done being an assistant, willing to take a big pay cut, move two college-bound daughters who went on to become doctors, and bet on himself. It worked everywhere he went, and it's working now in Bloomington.

On the present, Cignetti praised new quarterback Josh Hoover for meeting his two new best friends, a running game and a defense, while admitting that, like every coach, he's still worried about depth and frontline pieces in the summer. On recruiting in the paid era, he keeps it simple. He doesn't negotiate with agents himself, letting his people handle it, and his bar remains toughness, ability, character, and intelligence. The question that matters, he said, is how bad do you want it.

Asked what one rule he'd wave into existence, Cignetti said there isn't one. What college football needs is someone in charge with the power to make and enforce rules, whether a commissioner or an empowered NCAA that the courts have currently made toothless. He called the sport's recent days, a clear reference to the Brendan Sorsby resolution, a real plus. He knows Sorsby a little, since the quarterback was in his program for about a week and a half when Cignetti was hired, and called him an outstanding player and a great kid who will be a great pro with the proper support.

As for anyone calling Indiana a one-hit wonder, Cignetti, the self-proclaimed king of eliminating the noise and clutter, gave the only answer that fits. "We got to prove it." Even his wife, he laughed, doesn't understand the meme-worthy fascination, calling him the most boring guy in the world.