In his first year at the helm, Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti injected a level of confidence that the football program had never experienced. An historic win total followed, and Cignetti has only grown bolder in the months since.
But Cignetti recently announced that Indiana would be canceling a home-and-home series against Virginia in favor of adding some FCS opponents instead. Cignetti was swiftly criticized for avoiding tough competition in order to give himself an easier schedule.
When pressed by the media, Cignetti made it clear that he sees his nine Big Ten games as more important. He said that decided to “adopt an SEC scheduling philosophy” by having several Group of Five opponents or an FCS opponent.
“That was a scheduling philosophy that began before I was hired. But I did sign off on it upon being hired, before our first season,” Cignetti said at Big Ten Media Days. “Look, here’s the bottom line. We picked up an extra home game and we play nine conference games. The two best conferences in college football – any football guy that’s objective will tell you – [are] the Big Ten and the SEC. Twelve of the 16 SEC teams play three G5 or an FCS game. Twelve of those teams play 36 games – 29 G5 games and seven FCS games, and one less conference game.
“So we figured we’d just adopt [an] SEC scheduling philosophy. Some people don’t like it. I’m more focused in on those nine conference games.”
NEW: Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti takes shot at SEC in defense of canceled non-conference series with Virginia: "We figure we'd adopt an SEC scheduling philosophy."https://t.co/EYCVvEDx2E pic.twitter.com/gQWrQJou7T
— On3 (@On3sports) July 22, 2025
Fans quickly made it clear that they see Cignetti as a stat-padder, trying to farm some easy wins before inevitably getting crushed by the top-tier Big Ten teams:
“Ah yes Indiana who played one ranked team last year and lost by 23,” one user remarked.
“The irony in this is if any SEC team scheduled Indiana as a non-(conference) game, they’d get clowned for adding a weak team by the SEC hate club,” another remarked.
“This take is so tired and flat out wrong. Nobody is a fan of the November cupcake game, but virtually every SEC team has a Florida State, Clemson or Ohio State on the schedule as well. Any analyst who is hyping up or agreeing with Curt on these comments is either a hater or lazy.”
Jason Mowry/Getty Images
Curt Cignetti has already succeeded in making Indiana a more relevant football program than its been in decades. But the gap between Indiana and the real powerhouses of college football is still enormous.
He’s going to have a hard time closing that gap if he doesn’t give his players experience against teams with that level of talent.
Related: Indiana Head Coach Curt Cignetti Just Called Out SEC Teams
