Certainly but it's still impressive. Indiana just smoked a 5 and 1 Nebraska team. Cignetti has made people forget what Indiana football is. He's already a victim of his own success. I'd take cignetti over stoops by a Longshot but it's also interesting to hear people say this is Kentuckys worst team in years when downplaying Saturdays game. It's circular logic. Stoops isn't good but made a bottom dweller Kentucky program good enough to forget who they were to the point that a bad season is now recognized as not the norm.... Indiana is one of THE worst football programs ever historically. Any wins especially in dominating fashion is significant for them.
We can only hope Napier does an about face and we end up 7-5 8-4 and we keep him. We probably need to fire him but that is going to be rough.
What’s happening at Indiana is definitely impressive. And what I’m saying about beating one of the top teams is proving that their rank is deserved because as of now, I don’t believe they beat anybody in Nebraska is not very good either it doesn’t look like.
If we have an actual choice between Cignetti and Napier- no brainer... Frankly Cignetti is the kind of coach we SHOULD have thrown crazy stupid money at after Mullen... Not an unproven Sun Belt coach. The problems are.... Who says Cignetti wants to leave Indiana after just 1 year...Most coaches don't do that unless its jumping divisions... Can we afford Cignetti after payign so much in buy out? I have no idea. Can Cignetti sustain success for more than 1 year. (Probably, but we don't know.) If we fire Billy and Cignetti says no... I just don't want to reach for another unproven commodity. This needs to be a fire Richt/ hire Smart kind of deal...
In the Covid season of 2020, Indiana was ranked as high as #7 in the AP poll, beating three ranked opponents in Penn State, Michigan and Wisconsin that year. Coach Tom Allen led this team. Same coach that was fired last year after finishing 3-9.
I don't have any expectations of getting Cignetti but I think he is exactly what is needed here. Kick ass and take names attitude backed by substance and work ethic. We've had parts of the puzzle but never all 3 of those attributes in our past several hires. I doubt he leaves after one year though.
Utah finished #8 in the CFP poll that season. Tennessee lost to Florida and 3 top 8 teams last season. Their schedule was brutal. Discounting those wins is silly. I say fire Billy today. I'm ok with it, but I wont do it under a false narrative that he has "zero" wins against such teams. He has two very legit wins. That just isnt enough in most of our minds.
We'll see how good Indiana is without their starting QB, who injured his thumb in the 1st half against Nebraska. Gameday is coming to Bloomington this Saturday for the game against Washington, so we'll see if Cignetti can handle success and coach up the backup QB or if a lot of their success was from the starter, who just transferred to IU this year.
That's a pretty unforgiving take to judge them on how their backup qb holds up. They have been strong at all aspects of the game so I don't expect a meltdown but if a backup qb can't move the offense then typically the rest of the pieces usually give in to the pressure of a hamstrung offense. I don't think most programs are expected to not miss a beat without their star qb unless of course they are playing Florida.... That said, they should be able to handle Washington if they are as well coached as they look.
oh, is that all? lol. thing is, no one really knows for sure which coach will hit it out of the ball park when hired nor at what school. It is a crapshoot. Muschamp was Kirby before Kirby. But didn’t work out. Recent home run hired like a Lincoln Riley at USC…currently a swing and a miss. Hire a coordinator? Someone from G5? Someone from power 5? Someone who already won a national title? There are success stories and failures in all of those hiring categories. ADs and coaching searches can do their best with the search and hiring and they still don’t know if it will work out. There is just zero science behind it.
The thing Im not really cool with when it comes to Stricklin is the fact that he fired Mullen, a guy who had taken us to the SEC title game and two NY6 bowl games to hire Napier. You can definitely make a justifiable case for firing Mullen, and I could understand if we went after a major name, they said no, so we ended up with Napier. But Napier was choice number 1, and Sticklin paid so much to get him you would think he was the next Urban in Sticklin's mind, a must get. In my mind, and this is not the advantage of retrospect, Napier was not an upgrade to Mullen in terms of potential and how hot their name was. Not somebody you fire Mullen to go after, and definitely not somebody you attach a massive buyout to. Now I will speak with the advantage of retrospect and say its now an obvious bad choice to fire Mullen because honestly, I think he was ahead of the curve when it came to where CFB was heading and we just werent ready to hear it. I also think that the NIL and the advantage of just being able to throw money at players would have sured up his recruiting with other SEC powers. I think he learned his lesson with Grantham. And the biggest thing is I think he is still maybe the best schemer in ALL of college football and one of the best pure OCs to EVER coach the game. I mean our talent was nowhere near Bamas to be frank and he still had us within a stones throw twice of toppling them on pure scheme alone. With talent sort of equalizing out with NIL, a scheme and coaching advantage like that would be bigger than ever. (Edit Oh and NY6 bowl means CFP now. Meaning Mullen is a proven CFP coach) New DC (with a massive budget to pull in whoever the biggest fish is. Parker at Iowa?) + NIL changes in recruiting placing less emphasis on charisma and I really would give Mullen another chance if he wanted to come back if Lane turned us down.
To clarify, the angle I was trying to explain was that we'll see if Cignetti's success is more about his coaching or the new QB, now injured, they brought in, similar to what FSU and Norvel are going through now that Jordan Travis is gone.
I get it I just don't think it's apples to apples really. Norvell sucked his first two years and then they started winning games with transfer talent but also mainly Travis escapability. A lot of their success was based on broken plays, just look at their game with us in 2022. From the little I've seen if Indiana they are winning games as a team and playing well at each phase. That's all. I also don't know what to expect for quality from a backup qb at Indiana. Can't imagine they have a stacked 2 deep or anything
He’s doing it at In-di-ana though, a perennial doormat, in his first season. Remarkable by every metric. Yes, it looks like he hit portal gold on a QB from Ohio. If the backup (he’s the backup for a reason) doesn’t step in and perform at the same level as the injured starter, that changes nothing about the current perception of Cignetti, imho. TikTok - Make Your Day
