LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- This was perhaps the easiest call in college football this season. On Tuesday, Indiana head football coach Curt Cignetti was named Big Ten Coach of the Year.
He swept the league awards, winning the Hayes-Schembechler Award from coaches who voted and the Dave McClain Coach of the Year from media voters.
It's his fourth coach of the year award – he has won the honor at each of his previous stops, from the Penn State Athletic Conference in 2012, the Colonial Athletic Association in 2017 and Sun Belt last season.
He's also a finalist for just about every national coach of the year award, he has Indiana at 11-1 and awaiting its College Football Playoff destination – a remarkable improvement after the team finished just 3-9 last season and 4-8 the year before.
The eight-game improvement ties the second-best mark in college football for the past 28 years, and the Hoosiers might not be finished.
Among Cignetti’s superlatives this season, he became the first coach in NCAA Division I to start 8-0 or better in consecutive seasons at different schools. He had James Madison at 10-0 a year ago, and led Indiana to the same record before a loss at Ohio State.
In addition to his unprecedented record at Indiana, Cignetti has proven to be a colorful quote, from his exhortation to reporters to "Google me" before the season to a few well-chosen words as the Indiana run began to get national attention.
"What are we, 10-0?" Cignetti quipped after the Hoosiers beat Michigan. "Not bad."
In an interview with the Hoosiers Connect NIL collective, Cignetti said there’s a method to his quotability.
"I put a lot of time into what I'm going to say and I don't say much to the team," he said. "I try to make every word count so that the message resonates. If you talk too much, sometimes you get tuned out and then it's really hard to get them back."
Cignetti is the third IU coach to be named Big Ten Coach of the Year, joining Tom Allen in 2020 and Bill Mallory 1986.
Indiana’s 11 wins represent a record number for a program that had never recorded double-digit wins in its history. The Hoosiers’ eight Big Ten wins also are a program record.
For all of that, Cignetti signed an eight-year contract extension averaging $8 million annually during the Week 12 bye. The Hoosiers then beat rival Purdue 66-0 to finish the regular season. The coach of the year award from the league this year gives him a $50,000 bonus.
Indiana Football Coverage:
- BOZICH | Final grades for U of L, UK, IU, WKU football
- Indiana blanks Purdue, 66-0, awaits College Football Playoff update
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