{"id":692362,"date":"2026-01-20T23:53:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T23:53:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/692362\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T23:53:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T23:53:11","slug":"curt-cignettis-daughter-takes-victory-lap-on-paul-finebaum-after-indiana-national-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/692362\/","title":{"rendered":"Curt Cignetti’s daughter takes victory lap on Paul Finebaum after Indiana National Championship"},"content":{"rendered":"

The daughter of Curt Cignetti<\/a> took a victory lap on ESPN\u2019s Paul Finebaum<\/a> following Indiana\u2019s<\/a> 27-21 victory over Miami <\/a>in Monday\u2019s national championship. Finebaum was adamant back in October that Indiana rushed to sign Cignetti to an eight-year, $93 million contract extension.<\/a><\/p>\n

Considering Cignetti was only a season-plus into his tenure, albeit impressive, it didn\u2019t come out of left field. Still, for a program that was had the most losses in college football history, Cignetti brought more winning and buzz to the program than ever before.<\/p>\n

So Cignetti\u2019s daughter Natalie saw the resurfaced clip and just simply quote tweeted with a picture of her dad holding the CFP trophy. Perhaps Finebaum will eat his words now, or not.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think everyone on this panel agrees that he\u2019s done a phenomenal job, but this is how programs get in trouble,\u201d Finebaum said. \u201cThey just gave him an extension and a contract raise at the end of last season. We are barely at the midpoint. Let it play out before you completely send the Brinks truck up.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are very few generational talents. \u2026 I\u2019m still not convinced that Curt Cignetti is one of the top coaches in America. He has coached brilliantly this year, but can\u2019t you let it play out a little bit? He has one big win, maybe one and a half, including the win a couple weeks ago over\u00a0Illinois. And by the way, because Indiana is going to be in the playoffs, there\u2019s no way he could leave anytime before December or January.<\/p>\n

\u201cA couple of years ago, remember\u00a0Mel Tucker<\/a>\u00a0at\u00a0Michigan State,\u201d Finebaum continued. \u201cThey gave him a $100 million deal. He went out, lost to\u00a0Ohio State, and completely imploded after that.\u00a0James Franklin, same thing.\u00a0Jimbo Fisher<\/a>, same thing. All I\u2019m suggesting is take a deep breath, Indiana. Let the season play out a little bit before you mortgage a guaranteed $93 million contract that you may have to figure out a way to pay for down the road.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finebaum caused a stir then and is getting dunked on now, even by Natalie Cignetti. The good news for Finebaum is he can use his radio show The Paul Finebaum Show or any number of ESPN\u2019s show to come up with a new take. Maybe even jokingly poke fun at himself since he is self aware of his stature and platform in college football.<\/p>\n

Cignetti and Indiana finished 16-0 and as national champions this season. He is 27-2 in two seasons in Bloomington and has shown no signs of slowing down.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The daughter of Curt Cignetti took a victory lap on ESPN\u2019s Paul Finebaum following Indiana\u2019s 27-21 victory over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":692363,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[16784,7,49,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-692362","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"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115930123716078746","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692362","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=692362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/692363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=692362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=692362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=692362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}