Indiana football hiring James Madison’s Curt Cignetti as new head coach

BLOOMINGTON — Indiana plans on hiring James Madison coach Curt Cignetti as its next head football coach, a source confirmed with The Herald Times.

The Dukes are 11-1 this season in their second year transitioning to the FBS. In Cignetti’s first year with the program, he took the team to the FCS national title game. They would go on to reach the semifinals each of the next two years. 

He was named the Sun Belt Coach of the Year on Thursday just hours it was confirmed he was finalizing a deal with the Hoosiers.

Cignetti replaces former IU coach Tom Allen, who was 33-49 (18-43 Big Ten) with two bowl appearances in seven seasons. The athletic department negotiated a reduced $15.5 million buyout with the coach. 

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He had an annual salary of $677,311, which ranked No. 108 in the USA Today’s annual coaching database. Tom Allen’s annual salary was $4.9 million after he received an extension in March 2021. 

"We had a very talented and deep pool of candidates, and Curt stood out thanks to an incredible track record of success over more than four decades in college football," Indiana athletic director Scott Dolson, said in a release. "As a head coach he’s succeeded everywhere he’s been, and as an assistant he has been a part of championship cultures while working alongside some of the game’s best coaches. I appreciate the tremendous support throughout this process of Chair Quinn Buckner and the IU Board of Trustees and President Pam Whitten, all of whom were critical in making this day a reality.”

According to sources with knowledge of the situation, Indiana prioritized candidates with significant head coaching experience who had Midwest ties. 

Those sources said athletic director Scott Dolson also wanted someone who would come in with a ready-made recruiting plan and overarching recruiting philosophy. 

While there has been a focus on Indiana’s NIL efforts in recent days — Allen put out a statement saying the university needed to “ fully embrace those changes” — the feeling from administrators was that IU’s recruiting efforts had lost focus in recent seasons despite resources that were competitive with Big Ten schools they were recruiting against. 

The top candidates who emerged after an initial wave of interviews checked those boxes, none more so than Cignetti. 

“I am excited to lead this program forward and change the culture, mindset, and expectation level of Hoosier football,” Cignetti said, in a release. “I want to thank Director of Athletics Scott Dolson and President Pam Whitten, and I look forward to working with both in building something special at IU. Both share my vision and belief that big things are ahead for the IU program.”

While his head coaching experience mostly came at the lower levels, Cignetti never had a losing season as head coach. He was 52-9 in five seasons with James Madison,14-8 at Elon and 53-17 at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. 

Indiana hopes Cignetti is the instant success story he was for James Madison. 

The university hired him as the program’s eighth football coach on Dec. 14, 2018, he had a 52-9 overall record and was at the helm while the Dukes transitioned into the FBS and the Sun Belt Conference. 

There were no growing pains as JMU landed in the Sun Belt and the Dukes were Cinderella story this season going 11-1 (7-1 in the Sun Belt) — they began the season 10-0 — and made it as high as 18 in the Associated Press Poll. 

Under NCAA rules, the team was prohibited from competing from a national championship or bowl game over that two-year period. Lawmakers in the state initially threatened a lawsuit after the NCAA denied multiple waiver requests to reduce the transition from one year instead of two. 

The school backed off the legal action, but ended up gaining bowl eligibility for the first time in program history since there weren’t enough 6-6 teams that qualified. 

James Madison had a top 25 scoring offense (35.2 points per game) and defense (18.5 points allowed). 

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The Pittsburgh native was a quarterback at West Virginia before getting into coaching, which was a family profession of sorts. His father Frank Cignetti Sr. is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame, he was the winnest coach in IUP history with 182 victories. His brother Frank Cignetti Jr. has spent 30-plus years as an assistant in the NFL and college. 

Curt Cignetti spent the early portion of his career working primarily with quarterbacks that included lengthy stints at Pittsburgh and NC State. 

While working at NC State for coach Chuck Amato, he was the team’s recruiting coordinator while coaching tight ends (2000-02 and 2005-06) and quarterbacks (2003-04). Cignetti worked with famed Wolfpack quarterback Philip Rivers, who earned ACC Player of the Year honors in 2003. 

That success helped land him a spot on Nick Saban’s original coaching staff at Alabama. He maintained his role of recruiting coordinator and was the team’s wide receivers coach. The program had the country’s top recruiting class in 2008 under Cignetti’s direction.

The Tide went 14-0 in 2009 and won the BCS National Title. 

“I probably learned as much in Year 1 at Alabama as I did in the previous 28 years of coaching,” Cignetti said. “With Nick, it was football 401 every single day.”

Michael Niziolek is the Indiana beat reporter for The Bloomington Herald-Times. You can follow him on X @michaelniziolek and read all his coverage by clicking here.