The Indiana football team is preparing to play Alabama in the Rose Bowl. Hoosiers head coach Curt Cignetti is getting some great news ahead of the game. He is winning a national coaching award.
“Indiana’s Curt Cignetti wins George Munger Award as Collegiate Coach of the Year,” On3 reporter Brett McMurphy posted to X, formerly Twitter.
Cignetti has put together a stunning tenure at Indiana in just a few years. He has led the Hoosiers to the College Football Playoff twice, including this year as the no. 1 overall seed. Cignetti also won the Big Ten championship this season, defeating Ohio State for the league title.
Indiana football enters the Rose Bowl with a 13-0 record. Alabama defeated Oklahoma in the first round of the CFP, to advance to this quarterfinal game.
Curt Cignetti has been a magician at Indiana
Cignetti took over the Indiana program before the 2024 season. Before his time in Bloomington, he had coached at James Madison.
Cignetti quickly turned a losing Indiana program into a conference and national power. He has only lost two games since he started coaching the Hoosiers. His success there has been extraordinary; even the CBS News show 60 Minutes did a profile of him and his program.
The Indiana head coach has earned the respect of those who worked with him in the past. That includes one of his former players, Byron Dovales. Dovales was an offensive lineman for Cignetti, when he coached at Indiana University of Pennsylvania in Division II.
“I remember thinking, either this dude is crazy and it’s not going to work, or it’s going to work really well,” Dovales said, per ESPN. “He was hard on us. But we won fast. From then on, I was like, whatever this dude says, I’m in.”
Dovales is loving watching Cignetti coach at Indiana.
“I’m not surprised one bit by his success,” Dovales said. “I saw it from day one — and he has been the same coach ever since.”
Indiana’s game against Alabama in the Rose Bowl will surely bring back memories for Cignetti. Cignetti was an assistant for the Crimson Tide, when Nick Saban coached in Tuscaloosa. Cignetti worked for Saban from 2007-2011.
Indiana and Alabama play in the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day. The winner of that game moves on to the CFP semi-finals.
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