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IU247

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  6. Purdue Post Game Thread

    in IUBB Game Threads

    Posted

    Just now, Indykev said:

    That and the Big Ten style of play.

    I wonder if USC and UCLA will have enough pull next year. They will be in for a big ass wakeup when they see that officiating in the big 10 is as bad as what you find in a beer league game 

  7. Purdue Post Game Thread

    in IUBB Game Threads

    Posted

    1 minute ago, Indykev said:

    We can bitch all we want about the ref's, they were awful. But this team is worse.....the coach, team construction, QUIT, XJ sucks. NIT at best, if we make that.

    The thing is. This officiating shitshow has been a big ol issue for years.  But the suits in big ten HQ continue to stick their head in their hiney and pretend like the officials are not the problem.  
    Then when March madness comes around they wonder why the big 10 continues to suck  in the tournament  despite the issue being apparent to my blind neighbor  

    then

    • Like 7

  24. Curt Cignetti Hired as Indiana Head Coach

    in General Football Discussion

    Posted

    27 minutes ago, JSHoosier said:

    Too bad it's behind a pay wall.

    Quote

    BLOOMINGTON – The furious pace of his search for a new football coach, driven by his own self-imposed timeline, wore IU athletic director Scott Dolson down over the last week.

    At one point, so tired from the relentless march of interviews, phone calls and meetings, Dolson found relief in a phone call from former IU basketball player and current trustee Quinn Buckner. "I’m not going to ask you anything about the search," Buckner said according Dolson, "I just want to make sure you’re doing OK."

    But there was one moment when Dolson felt particularly energized. So enthusiastic was Indiana’s fourth-year athletic director following his first phone call with James Madison coach Curt Cignetti, Dolson hopped over from his office to tell Deputy Athletics Director Mattie White about it.

    “This guy’s different,” Dolson told White. “I think he can win here.”

    Thus began the process that eventually resulted in Cignetti replacing the “James Madison” in his title with “Indiana,” and culminated in a Friday news conference announcing Cignetti’s hiring as the Hoosiers’ new football coach.

    “It’s a challenge that really got my juices flowing,” Cignetti told reporters. “I left a great job that I could’ve retired in, with a contract through 2030, and won a lot of football games, but sometimes you’ve got to make hard decisions in life. This was a hard decision for me.

    Quote

    “You’ve got to be uncomfortable to grow, and I’m too young to stop growing. This is an exciting opportunity at a prestigious university in the top conference in the country. There’s no reason why we can’t be successful, pack the stadium and be a source of pride to the entire town of Bloomington and state of Indiana.”

    Quote

    That, like so much else Cignetti said to Dolson through this week’s search, will have been music to the ears of an athletic director who, in his early days as a fundraising officer with IU’s Varsity Club, used to drive to golf outings with Bill Mallory.

    A student manager on Bob Knight’s 1987 national championship team, Dolson knows most people attach him to IU’s basketball team first and foremost. But Dolson has fond memories of those road trips with Mallory to booster and fundraising events, picking the brain of the winningest coach in Indiana history about what it took for Mallory to build a consistent winner out of a historic also-ran.

    Quote

    As chair of the Big Ten’s athletics directors group, Dolson is keenly aware of the value and importance of football. At a time when so much else in his department stands on even footing or better, Dolson found himself frustrated in recent months the Hoosiers could not find a competitive level of relevance in the richest conference’s most-lucrative sport.

    When he fired Tom Allen last Sunday, Dolson did so intending to find a coach he was confident held a formula similar to the one his old golfing partner used to deliver six bowl berths in eight years across the prime of his tenure in Bloomington.

    “We put together a profile,” Dolson said. “What do we need right now? What is exactly what we're looking for? If this goes well, what would a coach look like? What would they be all about?”

    Dolson highlighted three key areas.

    First, IU wanted a coach with extensive success running his own program, with ability to recruit and develop players consistently and, perhaps most pointedly, a history of working with quarterbacks.

     

    Quote

    Second, the Hoosiers needed to be comfortable their choice would embrace and could thrive in the fluid and competitive NIL marketplace, name, image and likeness concerns only growing in importance in college football. Indiana’s partner collectives are prepared to arm Cignetti with $3 million-plus in NIL resources — IU needed to be sure anyone in his chair would have a clear-eyed plan for deploying them.

    And lastly, Dolson wanted a winner. A coach with, as he put it, “some swagger.”

    “We went quickly, Dolson said, “but we scoured the country, and fairly quickly, Curt identified himself as someone who was really different.”

    The process moved as swiftly as Dolson had initially hoped.

    Interest in the job exceeded Indiana’s expectations. Working with well-regarded search firm TurnkeyZRG, Dolson narrowed his focus to a list of roughly 10 coaches with whom he wanted to speak at least informally.

    There were a handful of assistants among them — IndyStar understands both IU alum/Ohio State offensive coach Justin Frye and Michigan running backs coach Mike Hart got a nod — but Dolson’s focus on coaches with an established track record running their own programs never seriously wavered.

    Quote

    As with any coaching search, there was a fair bit of public speculation that did not match private fact.

    Toledo coach Jason Candle and former Wisconsin coach Paul Chryst emerged as serious candidates. Jon Gruden, whose support came from a small corner of the program’s booster base, was never under consideration.

    Dolson began with phone calls and Zoom sitdowns, covering a lot of ground in a short space of time through more informal conversations. Cignetti began to separate himself then.

    Working hand-in-hand with Indiana University President Pam Whitten — who Dolson said is available for help and guidance “anything I need, anything” — Dolson also consulted a small group of trusted confidants, across both the university and the Big Ten.

    “I had her absolute, full attention,” Dolson said of Whitten. “There's absolutely no way we could have gotten this done without her.”

    From those initial interviews, Dolson narrowed his focus to a small group of finalists, perhaps no more than three. Each received a much lengthier in-person interview.

    Quote

     

    It was through that last step Cignetti established himself as IU’s favorite. No one impressed decisionmakers more, and despite James Madison having offered him a fresh contract with improved terms before Indiana’s interest became serious, once the Hoosiers made their financial commitment — including an improved pool of money for staffing — clear, negotiations were never a major concern.

    A private plane belonging to a major Indiana booster made multiple trips to the airport serving Harrisonburg, Va., on Wednesday morning and afternoon. By Wednesday night, Dolson and Whitten had arrived at a clear and present first choice.

    The following afternoon, Cignetti was announced as IU’s 30th head football coach.

    “He is an excellent recruiter, player developer, certainly evaluator,” Dolson said. “And the final thing with Curt, which was really the final piece of this, is that he's the type of person that will fit here. He's a great person. He's got an incredible work ethic, and he's got high character. For us, he was a perfect fit."

     

    Quote

    As with any coaching change, a lot is happening in a short space of time. A lot already has.

    From Sunday morning to Friday afternoon, Dolson toiled to find a man he believed could deliver the kind of success he dreams of, the level of which Indiana fans have been starved for much of the last 50 years. He went home Friday night believing he had.

    During her opening remarks, Whitten repeated an answer Cignetti gave during one of their discussions. Asked how he managed to win everywhere he’d been, Cignetti answered, by waging a tenacious battle against complacency.

    The answer stuck with Whitten. When she finished her remarks, Whitten closed by turning to IU’s new football coach, and telling him, “You were born to be a Hoosier, sir. Born to be a Hoosier.”

    To which Cignetti, smiling, said simply: “Agreed.”

    https://web.archive.org/web/20231202233123/https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/college/indiana/2023/12/01/indiana-football-how-curt-cignetti-became-the-coach-in-96-hours/71762935007/

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