The 2024 Home Depot National Coach of the Year, Curt Cignetti, was named the 30th head football coach in Indiana football history on December 3, 2024, and over his first calendar year on campus engineered one of the best first-year turnarounds in FBS history.
A program-record for wins in a season (11) and Big Ten victories (8) highlighted Cignetti’s first season in Bloomington. The 2024 season marked the first double-digit win season in program history and pushed IU into the College Football Playoff for the first time as the No. 10 seed.
Nationally, Cignetti was the first-ever Division I head coach to start 8-0 or better in consecutive seasons at different institutions. He led James Madison to a 10-0 mark to start the 2023 season and pushed Indiana to an identical mark to begin the 2024 campaign.
Cignetti also joined this select group of Big Ten coaches that started their Big Ten tenures with 10-0 overall records in the AP Poll Era (since 1936): Ryan Day (Ohio State, 2018-19), Urban Meyer (Ohio State, 2012), Earle Bruce (Ohio State, 1979), Bennie Oosterbaan (Michigan, 1948-49) and Carroll Widdoes (Ohio State, 1944-45).
INDIANA (2024-)
• Cignetti has immediately elevated the Indiana program with a program-record 11 victories in his first season at the helm and a College Football Playoff appearance.
• After helping the Hoosiers to an 11-2 record and an 8-1 mark in the Big Ten – both win totals are program-bests – he was named the Hayes-Schembechler Big Ten Coach of the Year (coaches) and Dave McClain Coach of the Year (media) from the conference office.
• The accolades didn’t stop there, as he was named the Home Depot National Coach of the Year at the annual ESPN Home Depot Awards and added national coaching honors from The Sporting News, Football Writers Association of American, Associate Press, Walter Camp Football Foundation and American Football Coaches Association.
• Cignetti is the first-ever Division I head coach to start 10-0 in consecutive seasons at different schools. (James Madison, 2023; Indiana, 2024).
• One of six Big Ten coaches that started their Big Ten tenures with 10-0 overall records in the AP Poll Era (since 1936): Cignetti (2024), Ryan Day (Ohio State, 2018-19), Urban Meyer (Ohio State, 2012), Earle Bruce (Ohio State, 1979), Bennie Oosterbaan (Michigan, 1948-49) and Carroll Widdoes (Ohio State, 1944-45).
• Cignetti engineered a 7.5-game improvement from Indiana’s 2023 to 2024 season, a number that sits as the fourth-best improvement by a first-year head coach since at least 1996 and is the best by a Power 4 head coach since 2012 (Gus Malzahn, Auburn; 8 games).
• He is the only Indiana head coach to begin his head coaching tenure 4-0 or better and his 11 wins set the mark for wins by a first-year IU head coach, previously held by James M. Sheldon (8; 1905).
• A win over FIU in Week 1, Cignetti became the 15th coach in program history to win the first game of his Indiana tenure and the first to do since Bill Lynch in 2007. He was the eighth IU frontman to start 2-0 and fourth to begin 3-0.
• Joins Clyde B. Smith (1948) as the only first-year Indiana head coaches to win their first game at IU and their initial Big Ten game.
• The 77 points in the Western Illinois set the single-game program record for points in a game and the 66 points against Purdue in a 66-0 shutout are the most by an IU team in a Big Ten game. The previous marks were 76 (Franklin College, 1901) and 63 (at Wisconsin, 2001).
• The 29-point margin of victory at UCLA was Indiana’s largest in a Big Ten road game since defeating Wisconsin (Oct. 6), 63-32, in 2001.
• Indiana’s offense has set program records for total touchdowns (70), offensive touchdowns scored (68), and rushing touchdowns (tied; 37).
• Put a staff in place started with the six assistant coaches and head strength coach that followed Cignetti from James Madison to Indiana: Bryant Haines (Defensive Coordinator/Linebackers), Mike Shanahan (Offensive Coordinator/Wide Receivers), Grant Cain (Special Teams Coordinator/Tight Ends), Pat Kuntz (Defensive Tackles), John Miller (Running Backs), Tino Sunseri (Quarterbacks/Co-Offensive Coordinator) and Derek Owings (Director of Athletic Performance).
