Hoosiers head football coach Curt Cignetti shares powerful rallying cry ahead of Indiana-Ohio State in Week 13

On By Littum

Hoosiers head football coach Curt Cignetti shared a legendary quote on College GameDay ahead of Indiana-Ohio State that let the haters know his roster has earned the right to be in the spotlight.

“This is just a football game,” Cignetti told College GameDay’s Jessica Sims (h/t On3). “60 minutes between the white lines. We have a veterans group, right? We earned the right to be here. There is no magic wand. We have the biggest margin of victory in college football, right? There is a narrative out there that has created another chip for us.

“People can hold on to that narrative, you know what.”

Many argue that IU wouldn’t be a contender if they had an SEC schedule instead of a Big Ten slate that didn’t feature Oregon or Penn State. All you can do though is beat the teams in front of you. Let’s not overlook Texas’ schedule either.

Pat McAfee sent a similar battle cry to Hoosier Nation from deep in Buckeye territory in Columbus.

“What an absolute honor,” McAfee said Nov. 23 on Ohio State’s campus. “Look, this college football season has been nothing short of magical. If you had to write a script about a movie, about a football game that would impact the sport for the next 20-30 years, you couldn’t write a better script than what we have here in the great state of OH-IO today. You have a team (at Ohio State), constant juggernaut. Every coach that has ever been coached here has won big – Woody won, Tressel won, Ryan Day has yet to win. And expectations are always through the roof for this team and this roster.

“In comes a team from Bloomington, Indiana. “A team awakened from the depths of college football. An island of misfit toys. A group of people who were outcasts. Not desirable. Not looking forward to a D1 football career. All the leaders on the team are from JMU. The quarterback (Kurtis Rourke), he’s a former MAC Player of the Year. Let’s get to the big games this weekend. It’s led by a head coach who is a football guy. It wasn’t until age 50 that he got his first head coaching opportunity. Then he wanted to go to JMU . Then he had come to Indiana with almost no money, no NIL and turned them into a juggernaut inspired to take over this college football world and come into the Horseshoe in November and beat the Ohio State Buckeyes ass.”

Indiana-Ohio State could impact the College Football Playoff rankings for future underdogs for years to come. If the blue-blooded Buckeyes dominate, an unfair narrative will haunt the Hoosiers and teams like them.