One thing about Curt Cignetti is he wins. Well, putting aside what happened inside Notre Dame Stadium on Saturday. He’s 130-37 overall in his head coaching career, 11-2 as part of the Power Four Conference. But there’s another thing about him too. He likes to brag. “Google me. I win.” That alone is enough to understand what sort of mindset he has. A confident and winning mindset, no doubt. But sometimes, bold words can invite unnecessary judgement and Paul Finebaum doesn’t hit the brakes in such situations. 

In a new YouTube episode on ESPN College Football on December 23, Paul Finebaum blasted Curt Cignetti’s daring statement that backfired on him. He said, “It just bothered me to hear Curt Cignetti running his mouth, talking like he’s actually done something. What he’s done is beating Purdue 66 to nothing and beating a bunch of middling teams. But he hasn’t beaten a good team and in the two games that he had against quality opposition, he got his head taken off.”

If you didn’t already know, Curt Cignetti came in like a hot shot ahead of the Indiana-Notre Dame clash in the first playoff round. He told ESPN, “We don’t just beat Top-25 teams. We beat the s— out of them.” But if you look at their season record, we can’t begin to comprehend where the 63-year-old HC found such confidence. 

As Paul Finebaum mentioned above, the only two ranked teams that Indiana faced this season were Ohio State and Notre Dame. The Hoosiers won every game except these two ranked games. And that too, by large margins, where they fell 38-15 to the Buckeyes and 27-17 against the Fighting Irish. Indiana now walks out of the playoff picture as Curt Cignetti not only faced the burden of losing but also fell into a void of humiliation for his audacity, especially after how his team finished the game. 

Curt Cignetti explains his punt decision 

Curt Cignetti spoke too soon because Indiana not only struggled throughout the game but the frugal ending led the devastated HC to make the choice to punt the game away. A “head-scratcher” occurred in the fourth quarter of the Indiana-Notre Dame playoff game. As the Hoosiers trailed 20-3, Cignetti made an unusual decision to punt the football to Notre Dame on fourth-and-11 at their 48-yard line. It didn’t help the Hoosiers. Instead, it gave the Irish another chance to score a touchdown. 

Following the game, Curt Cignetti expressed his disappointment in the offense, which is why he called the punt. He said, “I didn’t want to punt, but we were doing nothing on offense. And our defense was fighting. That was the only positive, really, that I could draw, is our defense was still fighting. Because offense was doing nothing.” Quite a bitter ending to their fairytale run! 

It may not have ended the way many wished it to be but we can’t deny that Curt Cignetti brought a transformation to Indiana football. It’s the Hoosiers’ first playoff appearance! That’s something!