Don’t Tell Curt Cignetti That Indiana’s National Championship Was a Fluke

Curt Cignetti has heard the whispers that Indiana's national championship was a one-hit wonder, and the national champion head coach has a simple answer.

First, Rich took him back to the decision that set everything up: leaving Nick Saban's Alabama staff to take a Division II job at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Cignetti had wanted to be a head coach since third grade, following his coach father, and after years stuck on losing staffs he wasn't advancing. He didn't want to be a 60-year-old assistant. So he made a move he guarantees no one in the profession had made before, a big pay cut with two daughters in high school, both of whom went on to become doctors. His wife was from the town, his parents still lived there, and there was no May recruiting, so they golfed every day that month. He woke up some mornings wondering what he'd done, but he was simply done being an assistant. It was time to bet on himself.

It worked everywhere he went, and it's working now. Rich asked whether Cignetti reflects on that leap now that he's a national champion at Indiana, and Cignetti admitted he does occasionally, especially when someone offers him a commercial paying twice what he made in his first two years at IUP. Rich playfully sniffed out that the commercial might involve a talking duck, earning a "I know nothing" Hogan's Heroes deflection.

Then came the real question: what does he say to people who think Indiana won't sustain it? Cignetti, the self-described master of eliminating the noise and the clutter, didn't flinch when Rich promised to bring all the noise, clutter, and funk to his door. His answer was the only one that fits a coach who's spent a career proving doubters wrong. "We got to prove it. Doesn't matter what I say, we got to prove it."