New Indiana coach Curt Cignetti expects massive issues in Bloomington

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — A distillation of what is vital for brand new Indiana coach Curt Cignetti to reverse the tortured fortunes of Indiana soccer the previous few generations might be discovered on the toilet sink in his workplace.

His toothpaste is a model known as Tom’s Of Maine, and its slogan may double because the blueprint to overtake Indiana soccer:

Get up.
Brush Tooth.
Make Change.

What is the scope of the change Cignetti must ship?

Effectively, Indiana is a program that has misplaced extra video games (713) than any in FBS soccer, the place no coach has left with a profitable report since 1947 and the soccer workplace wing is known as for a coach, Invoice Mallory, who left with a dropping report.

So what makes Cignetti suppose he can snicker at historical past and ship on the directive he sees on his toothpaste?

What makes him suppose profitable can comply with him to Indiana?

“WHY CAN’T IT HAPPEN HERE?” he shouts, virtually leaping off the sofa in his workplace.

Cignetti arrives at IU after a 52-9 run at James Madison. Previous to that, he authored immaculate resuscitations of packages at each Elon and Indiana College of Pennsylvania (IUP) that virtually required defibrillators.

“In my thoughts, I might already carried out this turnaround twice,” Cignetti stated of what he is going through at Indiana.

The place does that confidence come from? Effectively, profitable. In his opening information convention, Cignetti summed up his profession path and his self-confidence when requested how he sells this system in recruiting: “It is fairly easy. I win. Google me.”

Alongside the best way, a easy statement emerged for anybody who has spent even a small period of time round Cignetti. He carries with him an endless, unflappable and relentless perception in Curt Cignetti. He is most assuredly confident.

“His success that he is had as a head soccer coach,” Cignetti’s brother, Frank, instructed ESPN, “clearly breeds self-confidence.”

That perception is backed by what he deems a considerable monetary funding, one thing that hasn’t all the time existed at Indiana. That started with a $15.5 million buyout to fireplace coach Tom Allen. Curt Cignetti stated the NIL funding “is not less than triple” what it had been.

There’s additionally an overhauled roster of 38 new gamers — 22 transfers and 16 freshmen. And an adrenaline shot of confidence, together with Cignetti’s declaration that Purdue, Michigan and Ohio State “suck” after he was launched at Meeting Corridor.

There’s additionally a 2024 schedule that may very well be amenable to a sizzling begin, as IU will likely be favored in three of its first 4 video games, with a street journey to UCLA the one projected underdog recreation. (IU hosts Maryland in its fifth recreation.)

Cignetti’s father, Frank Cignetti Sr., is within the School Soccer Corridor of Fame, and his brother, Frank, is a longtime NFL and faculty coordinator. He combines that background with expertise working for Nick Saban and beneath different notable coaches like Johnny Majors (Pitt), Walt Harris (Pitt) and Chuck Amato (NC State).

As a head coach for 13 seasons, Cignetti has by no means had a dropping report. He flipped 2-9 Elon to 8-4 in his first season in 2017. He took over a 6-5 IUP staff in 2011 and, two years later, had it at 12-2 and within the Division II postseason.

So whereas the world sees Indiana’s teaching historical past the previous, say, 80 years as a training graveyard, Cignetti sees it a lot totally different. His unshakeable perception in an inevitable Indiana turnaround is rooted in untapped potential.

In any case, he already has carried out this turnaround twice. Some other concept he, nicely, brushes off as he retains waking as much as make change.

This is a Q&A with Cignetti from his workplace just lately, edited evenly for brevity and readability.

ESPN: What ought to folks anticipate from Indiana in 12 months 1?

Cignetti: We will be higher. We will win. Yeah, we will win. We will change the best way folks suppose. Altering the best way the gamers suppose is a straightforward factor. To vary the best way sure folks suppose on the college or within the state or within the convention or nationally about Indiana, we now have to provide on the sector. However we have the schedule. It is extremely aggressive, however it strains up very properly. So, we’ll see the place we’re on the finish of spring. What items we have to add within the portal on the finish of spring.

ESPN: Why can it occur right here?

Cignetti: Why cannot it occur right here? It is a state college. I imply we now have 48,000 college students. We’ve the second-most alumni within the nation. I imply, we’re pulling a giant test from the Huge Ten. Why cannot it occur? Except there’s not a dedication and you don’t need it to occur. Proper?

ESPN: Have they made “Google Me” T-shirts but?

Cignetti: No. However Mark Cuban advisable it. We’ll do one thing fairly neat with that, so we’re nonetheless engaged on it.

ESPN: Have any recruits or portal youngsters are available in and stated, “Coach, I googled you.”

Cignetti: I get that often.

ESPN: You are a confident man. Is that from teaching at decrease ranges and profitable? Or being round a training household? Additionally, do you must be somewhat daring to take this job on?

Cignetti: Yeah. And you have to painting that confidence to a spot like this, as a result of this place wants that proper now. They want hope and perception. However it’s like a participant or a professional ball participant that produces and produces and produces, over plenty of seasons. Why ought to he not be assured? I am the chief, proper? Everyone’s going to comply with my lead, and I imply, I do know what I am doing, and I do know that we might be profitable with the dedication. And we will likely be.

ESPN: What is the response been to the arrogance you’ve got projected?

Cignetti: What I hear is that they have not seen this fan base ever this enthusiastic about soccer. Season tickets are up 50% [compared with this time last year].

ESPN: Do you are feeling the assets at Indiana will assist you to be aggressive within the Huge Ten?

Cignetti: There ought to be no self-imposed limitations on what we are able to accomplish. OK? We do not need to be within the higher half of the Huge Ten in something. We need to be the very best. Our NIL is rising. Let’s not be snug with having the seventh-best NIL within the Huge Ten.

ESPN: Necessary query for any Indiana coach … have you ever met John Mellencamp but?

Cignetti: I did, really. We had an occasion with about 34 donors, with $100,000 get in for NIL. He got here and performed three or 4 songs. It was superior. Mark Cuban was there. So was his enterprise companion, Todd Wagner. It was an important affair.

ESPN: What did Mellencamp play?

Cignetti: He performed three or 4 songs, together with Jack & Diane, Pink Homes and Small City.

ESPN: The important thing pivot of your profession is if you left an assistant job beneath Nick Saban at Alabama to be the pinnacle coach at Division II IUP, the place your dad had been the coach.

Cignetti: I promise you, that was an unprecedented transfer.

ESPN: You instructed me you took a pay lower of almost two-thirds, from about $300,000 (with bowl bonuses) to about $120,000 to be the IUP head coach on the finish of the 2010 season. Why?

Cignetti: I did not need to end as a profession assistant. I felt like that is the best way it was heading. I had been the subsequent man on the coordinator listing when at Alabama, NC State and Pitt. And I took an opportunity, I wager on myself. There have been many mornings I awoke, as soon as I took that job, saying, “What did I do to my household?” Now it was my spouse’s hometown, she’s from a household of 10. She’s No. 9. So there have been some siblings there … however I did not go there saying, “I received to get out of right here.” I went there to attempt to make it higher. Simply labored on daily basis to make it higher.

ESPN: Stroll me by means of the transfer to Elon in 2017.

Cignetti: Effectively, after I was an assistant at NC State, I recruited there. I really talked to Elon a couple of times after I was at State, and there was nothing there. I am on the airplane down pondering, “Why am I going right here?” After which touched down. Effectively, they’d constructed all these items and had 7,000 college students and it regarded like a palace [with the facilities]. It was 3 times extra money — and so we did it. They had been terrible. I imply, they had been like 12-45 [in the prior five years] earlier than I received there. We got here out and performed Toledo, and I am six years beneath my belt by then. I do know what I am doing. We play arduous at Toledo after which win eight in a row [all one-score games] and performed No. 1 JMU for the convention championship. And the subsequent 12 months, we gained at JMU in recreation No. 6 [to snap a 20-game CAA win streak].

ESPN: That is an excellent audition for the JMU job.

Cignetti: When Mike Houston [left for East Carolina], my spouse and I had been at dinner and I stated, “We will find yourself there.” I had really interviewed there when Everett Withers received the job and received to know Jeff Bourne, the athletic director, within the league conferences.

ESPN: There’s been a surge of profitable coaches on the FBS stage who’ve small-school backgrounds — Kalen DeBoer, Willie Fritz, Lance Leipold and Brian Kelly all got here up that path. Why do you suppose that’s?

Cignetti: You study humility. I imply, we might make the playoffs [at IUP] and Thanksgiving week, the college shut down, so no person’s working upkeep. You go in earlier than the employees assembly, you are emptying the rubbish, waxing the employees desk. One 12 months, we went to the playoffs, we’re within the second or third spherical, and the college was doing one thing with the web that was deliberate way back. We did not have entry to [some film] till Tuesday. However you recognize what? Greater than something, you realized tips on how to be a head coach and also you make your errors, 12 months 1 and a pair of, however you do not have to pay as a lot for them.

ESPN: Your father, Frank Sr., is within the School Soccer Corridor of Fame. He labored for Bobby Bowden at West Virginia, labored as the pinnacle coach there and led IUP to a pair of Division II championship video games. Stroll me by means of a soccer lifetime of rising up in a training household.

Cignetti: We went to Morgantown in 1970. Bobby Bowden was the pinnacle coach. My father went first as a receiver coach and the subsequent 12 months, he was a coordinator. I used to be in fourth grade, really, within the 1970 season. However I used to be on the sideline each recreation and within the locker room at halftime loads of the video games. I used to be the older baby, so I knew I needed to educate proper then. And listening to Coach Bowden within the locker room at halftime, and I nonetheless keep in mind being at Maryland in 1973, he was all wound up down there within the guests locker room. And the 1975 win of West Virginia beating Johnny Majors and Pitt within the final seconds, that was the final word West Virginia expertise.

ESPN: Did you will have a option to do something aside from coach?

Cignetti: I did not need to do the rest. My dad type of half-heartedly tried to dissuade me, and I really did a enterprise internship my senior 12 months of faculty in the course of the summer time at West Virginia. However there was no manner, man. I needed to educate.

ESPN: So that you’re at JMU. And IU opens. What did you suppose?

Cignetti: JMU is nice. It is an important job, I appreciated dwelling there. I appreciated the folks. I actually appreciated Jeff Bourne, the athletic director. He was retiring. We had moved as much as the Solar Belt. We had gained it each years however could not play within the championship recreation and a bowl recreation and this and that. I had a very good staff coming again. I believed we may very well be that G5 staff within the 12-team playoff. However Indiana was a spot that I might been a few occasions and thought it was actually a pleasant place, good campus. And that Huge Ten TV contract actually type of caught my consideration about 14, 15 months in the past, which type of put them above the SEC. I imply, it is a state college. In my thoughts, I might already carried out this turnaround twice.

ESPN: Merely put, nobody has gained massive right here in almost a century. How did Scott Dolson and the administration let you know it was going to be totally different?

Cignetti: I believe I sensed the dedication right here that, clearly, faculty athletics has modified loads. Soccer has modified loads. Soccer’s driving the bus throughout the nation when it comes to athletic income. And Scott has not been right here that lengthy because the AD, however he is been right here 33 years and had a very good really feel for Indiana. He got here up as a ball boy beneath Bobby Knight. He and I actually hit it off. I actually received a way from the president, Pamela Whitten, who had been at Georgia for 5 years and at Michigan State 15, that soccer was actually essential. Institutionally, the soccer finances and the dedication can be there. I knew there can be an NIL dedication, not less than triple what it had been. Because it seems, it has been greater than that. I felt like there was a dedication to get it carried out. And I felt extraordinarily assured with a dedication that we’d achieve success. And I believe in December, we made super progress right here. You’ll be able to’t actually measure, it isn’t tangible or quantifiable as a result of we’ve not performed a recreation. However we fully flipped the roster in December.

ESPN: How did you do it?

Cignetti: By Day 3, we had been in a disaster mode rosterwise. We had 10 offensive starters within the portal, with some defensive guys. Now, the one factor concerning the portal is you possibly can flip that staff round somewhat faster. You could have 25 guys within the portal. Effectively, 15 of them, you is perhaps glad they’re within the portal. Proper? So we saved about half the blokes we needed to maintain, after which we had been capable of purchase the JMU crew. I didn’t anticipate that, however I suppose that is the best way of the world in 2023, when a coach leaves, guys go within the portal, I didn’t anticipate all these guys to go within the portal like they did. And we ended up taking 10 of them. In complete, we now have 23 folks from JMU right here, in the event you rely the teaching employees.

ESPN: How does having 23 people acquainted with what you’re doing assist you to set the tradition?

Cignetti: While you’ve had three straight dangerous seasons like Indiana had, after which after I sat down and talked to a few the gamers and heard some issues that I hadn’t heard in a very long time, it was very evident to me that I could not convey sufficient new faces in. To have the ability to convey 10 JMU guys from the championship tradition, but in addition 12 to 13 different transfers which can be two-, three-year starters at profitable packages that every one have productive numbers, all-conference honors. I imply, you’ve got fully flipped and altered the roster in a month now.

ESPN: What was that course of like?

Cignetti: I imply, I didn’t see this city in daylight. The day I received right here for the press convention [on Dec. 1], I noticed it within the daylight after which the day I left for Christmas. Individuals would say, “What did you consider Bloomington?” I stated, “I do not know.” I used to be within the workplace one night time till 12:30 a.m. I have not carried out that till since 1986. So, it is encouraging progress we made.

ESPN: What ought to we anticipate from Kurtis Rourke? He was the MAC Participant of the 12 months in 2022 and has battled some accidents.

Cignetti: He performed at about 215 in 2022, and he could not prepare main into 2023, so he performed at about 235. And we have him again down now, and he is in nice form. So, I am anxious. We begin spring ball right here in a few weeks. I am anxious to see what he does. Every thing will likely be earned, not given, however he is a three-year starter. He is gained loads of video games, thrown for lots of yards and landing passes. He is aware of tips on how to play the sport of soccer.

ESPN: Tyler Cherry was a top-20 quarterback in ESPN’s rankings. He clearly flipped over from Duke after Mike Elko left. What’s flashed there to date?

Cignetti: Individuals consider he has particular qualities. He was a really extremely rated man. He is one of many highest recruits Indiana has gotten in an extended very long time right here, from in state. I used to be at NC State when Philip Rivers gained {that a} job as a freshman. We had an important 12 months. The primary 12 months at Elon, we had a freshman [pop in] spring ball. That very same deal. We had an important 12 months. So that is an open competitors, as we have Tayven Jackson right here as nicely.