BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (WDRB) — The first correction of Indiana's spring did not wait for a whistle.
It didn't wait for a rep, or a missed assignment, or a ball on the ground. It didn't even wait for the first spring practice after Indiana's perfect run to the 2025 national championship to begin.
It came before things started, when Michigan State wideout Nick Marsh showed up in gold shoes.
Curt Cignetti saw them, stopped him, and let him know — in terms that did not invite interpretation — that they would not be part of Indiana football that day.
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"I didn't love those gold shoes," Cignetti said. "He learned what getting your ass ripped is all about. I don't know if that happened to him very often at Michigan State. That was before practice started. That was a wake-up call. But he's really worked hard, done a great job for us."
Welcome to Indiana football, where the only visible remnant of last year’s national championship is the head coach’s exacting standards and his demand for humility.
After a 16-0 season, he was asked how in the world this team could improve on that. His answer: It can't.
"That's over," he said, flatly.
He didn't dismiss the notion in anger or minimize it. Just filed away, like last year's game plans.
Michigan State transfer receiver Nick Marsh had a quick wake-up call during Indiana's first spring practice of the 2026 season.
"You can't really improve on 16-0," he said. "Because there were 16 games and you won every one of them. What you can improve on is your day-to-day consistency and the tools in your toolkit."
There is a way programs usually handle perfection. They protect it. They talk about "standards" and "defending" and "building on success." Indiana is doing something more uncomfortable.
It is dismantling the evidence. Cignetti ordered the national championship trophy removed from his office in February.
"We're building a house from the ground up again," Cignetti said. "We've got to have that edge and be humble and hungry."
That isn't metaphor for effect. It's necessity.
The roster has changed. The locker room has turned over. Some relationships that took years to build are gone, replaced by players who have been on campus for weeks. Even the returning players, Cignetti noted, "forgot what they knew," while the freshmen "don't know what they don't know."
Winning, it turns out, does not preserve habits. It erodes them. So the work begins again, at ground level.
With alignment. With accountability. With the right footwear.
Cignetti arrived after practice with the words, "Day one is in the books and day two is coming up Saturday."
Already moving forward. Cignetti doesn't need a rear-view mirror.
"I bought a new Audi SQ8 the first summer I was employed here from down the road there, and that thing has got a lot of horsepower in it," Cignetti said. "One night within the first couple weeks that we owned it, my wife and I were returning from Ohio to see our son and there was nobody on the highway … "
He didn't finish the thought. The coach who will drive the pace lap for the Indianapolis 500 isn't about to get off the gas.
"I would not be setting a good example for the young people (if he elaborated), but I laid it down pretty quick. It's got a little juice in it. But I'm going to put the pedal to the metal when they tell me to in Indy."
And in Bloomington, too.
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