{"id":441232,"date":"2025-10-12T19:36:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T19:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/441232\/"},"modified":"2025-10-12T19:36:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T19:36:12","slug":"paul-finebaum-predicts-curt-cignetti-will-leave-indiana-for-bigger-job-after-program-resurgence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/441232\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Finebaum predicts Curt Cignetti will leave Indiana for bigger job after program resurgence"},"content":{"rendered":"

At his first Big Ten Media Day as the head coach at Indiana<\/a>, Curt Cignetti<\/a> wanted to make a statement. So, he said, \u201cI win. Google me.\u201d In other words, if you didn\u2019t already know him, he wanted to make sure everyone learned. A year and a half into his tenure there, he\u2019s one of the best coaches in all of college football.<\/p>\n

Part of what has made this run so remarkable is that Cignetti has done it at Indiana, traditionally a program that is starved for big wins. After beating Oregon<\/a>, they can\u2019t say they\u2019re starved anymore, though. Of course, that\u2019s also put Cignetti on the map as a target for other teams. <\/p>\n

Paul Finebaum recently predicted on The Matt Barrie Show that he\u2019ll leave for a traditionally bigger job. That\u2019s because he doesn\u2019t believe it\u2019s a sustainable run of success there.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, it\u2019s not,\u201d Paul Finebaum said<\/a>. \u201cI just don\u2019t think it is. We\u2019ve seen a lot of coaches who\u2019ve stayed at the roulette wheel too long. Cignetti is at an age where he\u2019s thinking I probably have another move left. Where is it and for how much? I would encourage him to think about it.\u201d <\/p>\n

The success that Indiana has had under Curt Cignetti is remarkable. This is a program that hadn\u2019t had a double digit win season in the entire history of the program until Cignetti\u2019s first season in 2024. That was also their first trip to the College Football Playoff<\/a> ever and their first AP Top 10 finish since 1967. Now, sitting at 6-0, Indiana wants to build on that success.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just think, at some point, you\u2019ll get the wrong quarterback. You\u2019ll miss a little bit and it will crash like triple witching hour on Wall Street. That\u2019s just my thought,\u201d Finebaum said. \u201cNow, I also would\u2019ve gone broke betting against Indiana this year. That\u2019s just my gut feeling having watched college football for a very long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Curt Cignetti is a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania native and is now 64 years old. A former quarterback at West Virginia<\/a>, in 2011, he got his first head coaching job at IUP. He\u2019d later coach at Elon<\/a> and James Madison<\/a> before making the jump to Indiana. In that career, he has a 136-37 record.<\/p>\n

This also comes in a coaching carousel that\u2019s going to be crowded with big job openings. That, ultimately, could be too tempting, according to Finebaum.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year was one of the dullest. There wasn\u2019t even an opening in the SEC, but I think there\u2019ll be a massive opening. Sometimes you don\u2019t know what\u2019s in somebody\u2019s head. I mean, I think he\u2019s been amazingly successful and fortunate, but it\u2019s hard to dial that up every time. You see it across college football. Really good coaches, if not great coaches, slightly make a mistake on a quarterback and there\u2019s no turning back during that season,\u201d Finebaum said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThen, you\u2019re right back at it again the next year. This isn\u2019t where you\u2019re building. It\u2019s mass chaos right now and Cignetti has been successful at it. I would bet against him trying to do this three or four years in a row, though.\u201d<\/p>\n

For now, Curt Cignetti is focused on the field at Indiana. There, they\u2019ll need to avoid a letdown game when they go home to take on Michigan State<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At his first Big Ten Media Day as the head coach at Indiana, Curt Cignetti wanted to make…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":441233,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[16784,7,49,48,8007],"class_list":{"0":"post-441232","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-curt-cignetti","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-football","12":"tag-paul-finebaum"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115362885323738569","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441232\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/441233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}