Around two years ago at this time, I wrote an article attempting to identify the most influential active college football coach in the wake of Nick Saban's still-fresh retirement. I listed 12 candidates; Curt Cignetti was not among them. Whoops.
In my defense, Cignetti was 0-0 at Indiana at the time. The only things he was known for by the common man, if he was known at all, was an impressive run at James Madison and is now-iconic "Google me" quote.
Two years and one national championship later, when Cignetti talks, people listen. The future College Football Hall of Famer will have coaches from the NFL to youth football parsing every word for insights, and his oft-repeated mantra will be copied onto brick walls in high school facilities across America:
From the first play to the last play: Fast, physical, relentless; smart, disciplined, poised. One play at a time, six seconds a play. Every play has a life and history of its own, like it's nothing-nothing. Not affected by success, not affected by failure -- on to the next play. Never satisfied. Playing to a standard, not the circumstances of the game. You've got freedom of choice, not freedom of consequence.
Cignetti recently sat down with Bison Drop -- the folks that just auctioned off a game-worn Cignetti headset for $112,500 -- to talk through, well, everything, and the first portion of the interview featured Cignetti breaking down each of the seven sentences in the paragraph above.
"One of our goals is to be the lowest penalized teams in the country," Cignetti said, flanked in the background by the College Football Playoff, Big Ten, Rose Bowl and Peach Bowl trophies.
Indeed, penalties were among the more than two dozen statistics in which IU was in the top 10 nationally last season. The Hoosiers tied for fifth at 3.8 per game. But that's not the metric by which Cignetti judges success or failure. "One in 30 plays is our goal on defense, offense and special teams," he said.
The 2025 Hoosiers easily cleared that metric. At aproximately 2,419 total plays -- offense, defense, punts, field goals, PATs, kickoffs, and all opponent punts, field goals, PATs and kickoffs (I do not have data on how often IU or its opponents went for two) -- Indiana committed 60 accepted penalties. That's one every 40 plays.
Indiana's penalty numbers are both a leading and lagging indicator of their success as a program.
The lack of penalties help IU succeed by -- obviously -- the offense not putting itself behind schedule and the defense not keeping itself on the field longer than necessary. This is kindergarten-level stuff. Why is Indiana so successful? Because they don't commit penalties. Duh.
Flip the paradigm around, though, and it makes even more sense. Why doesn't Indiana commit penalties? Because they're so successful.
In general, penalized players are beaten players. The offensive lineman manhandled by the defensive end, so he holds him. The cornerback fooled by the receiver, so he interferes. Indiana keeps its players out of penalty-inducing predicaments through their preparation. The more physically fit and mentally prepared team prevents its players from putting themselves in disadvantageous positions. That was Indiana.
"We live it. Eliminate pre-snap penalties. Don't hit the guy late out of bounds. Don't rough the quarterback. You're going to have some penalties, but we've been really high in the country," Cignetti said. "You want to play smart. Everybody's got an assignment. Eleven guys doing their job -- I say it all the time, it's not addition it's multiplication. When 11 guys do their job fast, physical, relentless, it's going to work out. You get one guy not doing his job, the whole thing can break down. If you're playing that way -- one play at a time, six seconds a play, every play has got a life and history of its own, nothing-nothing."
And as Cignetti was in the middle of repeating his mantra for the second time in the interview, the interviewer cut him off, and everything clicked into place.