Sitting in his spacious but sparsely decorated office overlooking Memorial Stadium on Thursday, armed with the validating hindsight of a 5–0 start, Curt Cignetti explains what the hell he was thinking on Dec. 1, 2023. That was his first day on the job as football coach of the Indiana Hoosiers, and Cignetti was the mouse that roared at the rest of the Big Ten Conference.
“I know a lot of people were like, who’s this f---ing guy?” Cignetti says with a Yinzer accent, his Pittsburgh-area roots slipping out one curled vowel at a time. “I didn’t care. I’m 62, 63 now. I didn’t give a f---.”
