I Googled Curt Cignetti, as he desperately asked everyone to do, and I was NOT impressed

Let me start this blog by saying this: I am a Curt Cignetti fan. And except for the three other Indiana “fans” (started Week 6, now diehards) in our office who I asked to see if they’d sign up for a 10-point loss in Columbus on Saturday (they all emphatically said yes sooner , than if Cig was offered an SEC job tomorrow), nobody wants the Hoosiers to keep it close this weekend more than me.

A rising tide lifts all Big Ten ships, and the thing is, if Ohio State blows Indiana out for …. checking notes….29. time in a row on Saturday, then it is very likely that the committee will realize that a 2-loss. Georgia/Alabama/Tennessee/Ole Miss is significantly more deserving of a playoff spot than an Indiana team that has beaten as many ranked teams as the 0-11 Kent State Golden Flashes. But if they can at least keep it close in their only heart rate check of the season, I think the committee will continue this Make-A-Wish season that started when the Hoosiers paid $1,000,000 to cancel their Week 2 road game at Louisville to replace them with a home game against the storied 3-8 FCS powerhouse Western Illinois Leathernecks.

However, partying at FCS is nothing new for Curt Cignetti. It’s become his Green Bay power sweep to success that he runs again and again, including next year at Indiana when they open their cherry-picked schedule with what some people in the MEAC call Murderer’s Row.

Okay, that was dishonest. It should be pointed out that Old Dominion (4-6) and Kennsaw State (1-9) both recently went FBS, so I’m guessing the Cig isn’t avoiding all FBS teams, just the ones over .500. Anyways, the point of this blog is not to look into the future. The point of this blog is to look into the past as Coach Cignetti directed me to. No, I’m not talking about when he copied and pasted Jim Tressel’s famous basketball halftime speech when he was introduced as Ohio State’s football coach. I’m talking about when he was asked back in December how he plans to sell his vision to recruits, and he very humbly replied, “I’m winning. Google me.”

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Relax, Muhammad Ali. But at least The Greatest was the World Heavyweight Champion when he said “It’s hard to be humble when you’re as big as I am”…not someone bragging about his back-to-back Sun Belt East Division Championships. But okay, fine, Cignetti…I’ll google you. And what I have found is the equivalent of a finely polished candy red Ferrari that has never had an oil change. Looks great on the outside, but when you actually lift the hood, you find it’s nothing but lipstick on a pig.

The thing is, Curt Cignetti tells me that Googling him is like challenging someone to a dick measuring contest when you have a 4 inch…hard. Your wife might tell you that your 29-4 overall record as an FBS head coach is all she ever wanted, but then you realize that your career strength of schedule is a negative 3.09 rating, all your lies and deception has led you to a life in Bloomington in the middle of nowhere. And that’s my favorite part about this whole two-word Google quest that Cignetti set me on… it’s not just Indiana where he’s used a combination of smoke, mirrors and a big mouth to convince the world that he is God’s gift to football. He’s been doing it his entire career.

You’d think this gauntlet of a schedule he’s faced thus far at Indiana…filled with more FCS schools than ranked teams…would be the standout on the resume that this iron sharpens iron, a hard man has put together. He’s a new coach and he has to play the schedule they made for him! But no, it’s actually the toughest schedule he’s played by a country mile. His negative 1.52 SOS this year has brought his career mark up significantly as his time at JMU ended with -3.01 and -4.73 hardness levels.

Thing is, the guy is a weak schedule merchant and he fakes victories for bigger jobs and more money, which he’s about to do in Indiana. Or wait, people from the Nothing State think his shiny new contract means he’s actually staying at a lower school that top talent looks down on when they fly over the state of Indiana on their way to official visits to schools that have more to offer than corn in NIL?

Oh, and for reference, here’s Ryan Day’s SOS throughout his career:

The point is, it’s not that hard to get a positive rating…let alone a high one. Ohio State hosted Akron, Marshall and Western Michigan in their non-conference this season and they STILL have a 3.91. Curt Cigetti wanted me to Google him? All I found out is that he is a con artist who must talk a big game since he never plays in them. I found out that his 11-1 season last year at James Madison consisted of playing a team with a pulse (barely)…Appalachian State…and losing at home.

In fact, if you look back at his 29-4 record coaching in the FBS, he has no career wins (unless you count #22 Coastal Carolina back in 2022, which I don’t). However, all 4 losses are unranked. Google told me. On the flip side, Ryan Day is 47-0 against unranked teams. But Indiana has the coaching advantage Saturday, right?

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Look, I don’t want it to look like I’m going to this Cignetti guy. I’m actually a big Indiana Hoosiers fan and I want them to make the College Football Playoff. Because the thing is, the more teams like Indiana that make the field, the easier it is for Ohio State to win the national title. But at some point they are the Houdini of a coach who has fooled the general population of this great country into thinking he has done one hell of a thing in the football world’s need to wake up and think for itself. Google him like he wants!

But the good news is that, barring a fake Covid outbreak or something crazy (which I’m not entirely ruling out), the ball will be kicked off tomorrow in Columbus and Curt Cignetti will be playing 60 minutes of football against a team that can walk and chew gum at the same time. And at that moment, no amount of smoke and no amount of mirrors and no amount of press conferences can save him from the ass Christmas we all know is coming.

I wish Ryan Day would make an example of this fool and play 100 on the Hoosiers, but he’s not only the better coach on Saturday, he’s the better person. In the end, I think the Big Ten calls when it’s 41-10 Buckeyes early in the 3rd, paired with the fact that Ryan has a heart + wants Indiana in the playoffs, and the game ends Ohio State 41-25 or something more respectable than what it could be. Curt Cignetti will again be helped not by himself, but by others.