No need to Google Cignetti

Hoosier Natty. How can you not be romantic about that?
Indiana, college football’s doormat for most of my lifetime and well beyond that, completed one of the greatest turnarounds in sports history Monday night, downing Miami 27-21 on the Hurricanes’ home field. After all this time, it’s still fun to see the U stub its toe. 
Indiana football – 16-0. The undisputed, undoubted, deserved national champions. Not even the greatest of SEC shills can argue otherwise. 
How did we get here? 
Curt Cignetti, really. Two years ago, an unapologetic coach took a football job at a basketball school, proclaimed he was going to win games and when asked how, he simply said, “I win. Google me.”
You could, but here’s the deal. Since then, Cignetti is 27-2 and a college football national championship coach. And to post that record, Indiana had to run through a who’s who of college football, kicking the rear ends off Ohio State, Alabama, Oregon and Miami. 
There’s not enough room here to include all of Cignetti’s accomplishments at Indiana in just two years. Literally, worst to first. 
Everyone has tried to compare what Cignetti has done at Indiana in such a short amount of time to other accomplishments and frankly, there is no comparison. Indiana has the second-most losses in major college football history all-time and in just two years, Cignetti turned the Hoosiers into champions. 
That doesn’t happen. But it did. 
Fernando Mendoza, the 2025 Heisman trophy winner, showed guts and glory when it mattered most. I mean, that bone-jarring touchdown run on fourth down in the red zone was something out of a movie.
Now, while that run may have been more important to the end result, it certainly wasn’t the best ever in a championship game. Wasn’t even the best by a No. 15 quarterback. If you know, you know. Steve Spurrier knows. 
In this new world of college football where player loyalty is a thing of the past and it is seemingly all about how much money one can make, there’s a guy like Charlie Becker that makes you fall in love with college football all over again.
Becker wasn’t a Cignetti guy, he was an Indiana commit before the coach even showed up. A lot of players from the previous regime, most of them really, skipped town.
Becker stayed. Even when he wasn’t given playing time. He grinded on special teams. He earned his way onto the field, the trust from his coaches. He wasn’t even a key offensive factor earlier this season. 
Who made the two most important catches on key third and fourth downs down the sideline with the game on the line? The kid who was loyal to Hoosier Nation. 
Cignetti didn’t do this with a bunch of sure-fire NFL future hall of famers, either. Just a bunch of uncut gems and a dream. 
It’s been 38 years since Notre Dame won a national championship in football. They’re not even the best team in the state anymore. 
Indiana will never be a football school or a football state. Hoops runs that state. But, as long as Cignetti struts the sidelines, the Hoosiers are a threat to win championships. 
With all that being said, how about Fred Hoiberg? How about Nebrasketball?
If Indiana can win a football national title, who says Nebraska can’t run the table in March? 
Cignetti broke the space time continuum. Hoiberg can blow it all to smithereens. This was all written just to finish by saying…your turn, Hoiberg. Shock college basketball!
RICHARD RHODEN can be reached at sports@hamilton.net.