Kentucky’s New HC Just Made a Cignetti-like Boast about His Coaching Ability

Curt Cignetti gave college football a two-word answer that turned into a genre. Somebody at Kentucky was always going to try it next.

The premise Rich laid out is sound. A copycat league is not just an NFL phenomenon. College football works the same way, and Cignetti performing the way he has at Indiana, a school nobody expected to become a powerhouse let alone a defending national champion program, means the whole package gets copied. Including the swagger.

When Cignetti was once asked why he thought he could win at Indiana, he did not hedge.

"Google me," Rich recalled. "I win."

Enter Will Stein, the new head coach at Kentucky, fresh from Oregon. Asked at his introduction why he thinks he can win big in Lexington, Stein took a beat and then went for it.

"This is going to sound like really, I think because of me, to be honest," Stein said. "I think because of me. I think I know what it takes. I have seen it at the highest levels. I know what it takes to recruit at this level. And you just got to believe, man. You just got to put the ball down and play. There's not really else to be said."

To his credit, Stein did not pretend to have a timeline. Asked whether it happens overnight, he was honest.

"I don't know. I really don't," he said. "If I had a crystal ball, everybody in this room would be really, really rich right now. I don't. And so the best determination of if what you're doing is working is putting the ball down and playing football."

He also made clear this was a choice rather than a rescue. Stein said he was fired up that Mitch brought him there, excited about what the future holds, and that if he did not believe it, he would have stayed at Oregon and kept coaching Dante.

Rich kind of dug it, and the show's follow-up question was the right one. Why not Kentucky?

The Indiana comparison holds up better than it should. The Hoosiers had the Big Ten as a platform and rich football-loving alums. Kentucky has both of those things too. Rich made the obvious point about the checkbook.

"Whoever opened the wallets for the basketball team, let's open them up for the football team, no?" he said.

That is the entire argument, and Indiana proved it. The old way of doing things and the old expectations of who is going to be in the mix and who is going to be standing there at the final bell are gone.

Rich ran through what Indiana actually did. Undefeated season. National championship. Heisman Trophy. First overall pick in the draft.

"It can happen anywhere now," he said. "And why not Kentucky? You have the moxie, go do it."

The one wrinkle worth enjoying is where Stein is coming from. He is arriving in the SEC, where it just means more, straight out of the Big Ten and the Oregon world.

The show landed on the generous read, which feels correct. Nobody needs to call the guy out for believing in himself out loud. If the swagger is what got Indiana to the top of the sport, the swagger is the part everybody should be copying.

Now Stein has to put the ball down and play.