Scott, we're going to wait for some people to get in here
first. There's no point in going nuts
starting a live stream unless people are there.
So we're just going to want to do the.
The try and do the intro music acapella.
Actually I might have it. Let's see if this works.
You're listening to the Back Home Network presented by Home
Field Apparel. This is where Scott does his
acapella impression of the Crimson cast.
Did you just do that on your end?
No. No.
OK, Sorry. It ran twice.
All right, we're going to. Go ahead and get started.
Not what that sounds like at all, anyway.
All right, guys, let's get going.
I'm not on Straight No Chaser. That's exactly right.
No. Welcome to an emergency live
podcast, Galen Clavio Scott Caulfield joining you here as
we've got Candy Stripe Smoke coming out of Memorial Stadium.
After one of the most rapidly paced coaching searches I can
ever remember Indiana University doing, I use apparently got
their man the news coming out earlier today from Pete Thamel,
actually about maybe what, 40 minutes ago, that Indiana is
finalizing an agreement to hire James Madison head coach Kurt
Cignetti. No terms yet.
We don't have any of those things.
But one thing you learn about the media business after a
while. When that starts to break, it
all goes immediately afterwards. You can pretty much bank on it.
And in fact, we've got Zach Osterman of the Indy Star
confirming it. We've got some other folks
confirming it. So we're going to talk about it
as much as we can. First of all, thanks to all you
folks for joining us either live or afterwards.
And if you've got comments, please go ahead and include them
in the You can send us to us on Twitter, you can send it on
YouTube, or we're on Twitch as well.
So Scott, let's get going here. When we got the news that Tom
Allen was being let go, you know one of the things that we talked
about was the things that Indiana needed to be thinking
about as far as their next hire. And what you see here with this
hire is a different direction that I think both of us
initially thought Indiana was going to go.
But this is a really, really fascinating direction for
Indiana and one that I have got a lot of of interest in.
Scott, can you hear me at all? I know we're this is, this is
the perils of live radio folks. Oh, we just lost Scott
altogether. He's going to come back in a
second. Anyway, I'll continue to intro.
What we talked about before was this idea of are you needing
some Power 5 experience? Are you needing somebody who
could really get people excited and build the program?
We didn't have Kurt Signetti on that initial list of people.
But This is why coaching searches sometimes take a
different direction than you think that they will, because
you never know exactly who's out there in the mix.
We're going to try to get Scott in here again.
Scott, can you hear me now? We can't hear you.
So Scott's going to continue to. Oh, no.
What? No.
There you are. There you are.
OK, we're back. So let's talk about Kurt
Signetti. First and foremost Kurt
Signetti. For those of you who aren't
aware, a a lifetime record overall as a head coach of 119
and 35, which is pretty darn impressive.
Now that's spread over a bunch of different levels, starting at
IUP, The other Indiana University, Indiana, UC of
Pennsylvania Division Two. He was 53 and 17 there and
really was kind of continuing on the family business there as a
head coach. Decided in 2017 to move to Elon
and coach the Phoenix that is a a smaller school in the realm of
Division One FCS and did some amazing things in very short
order. Got Elon to two NCAA tournaments
then moved to James Madison. A much more established program
and an established program that was looking to make a move up to
the FBS level. And that's what they did.
And with Kurt Cignetti as their head coach, they went fourteen
and two 7:00 and 1:00 and 12:00 and 2:00 from 2019 to 2021.
And then the last two years, 8:00 and 3:00 and then 11:00 and
1:00. We just lost Scott again.
Hopefully we'll be able to get him back here shortly as he's
having some technical issues. Cignetti with a fascinating
background. Prior to becoming a head coach
at IUP, he was Nick Saban's recruiting coordinator as his
first what, the first staff. Basically that he hired at
Alabama and recruited a ton of really fascinating and and high
level players. Mark Ingram recruited down to
Hightower. Before that he was at North
Carolina State where he infamously coached Phillip
Rivers. During that stretch of time when
they beat Indiana a couple of times.
Many of us remember those games quite well, Scott, I was not.
This guy was not really on my radar that much.
Frankly, the more I've read about them, the more juiced I am
about this hire. What's your overall take on
things? Can you hear me?
All right? Sorry.
I've had weird, weird technical. It's it's going over the ocean
from Hawaii. I like you, man.
Well, I don't. I didn't have a radar.
I kind of waited to see where the the hot, the hot boards came
up with, You know, I just got to say, you know his time at
Indiana University in, you know, before where he went 53 and 17.
And 33 and 11 in the Pennsylvania State Athletic
Conference. I forgot about that.
But those are great records. I'll.
I'll take that all day long. I joke he was at IU
Pennsylvania. No I'm.
I'm with you. You know the more I read about
it the more he does kind of fit the profile.
You know you go in these searches and you kind of
everybody kind of ends up kind of finding their one target
where it's like oh that's you know on the hop board.
Like that's the guy I think would be perfect and he he
checks all of, you know my boxes This this was not.
Up there. But the more I read about him,
the more I look at it. You know, he, he has a system.
He has a program. He has a history of winning.
You know what, Elon and then James Madison.
You know, he went from division two to Division One or whatever
they're called the the playoff, the Football Playoff.
But you know, most teams struggle.
You know that team went nineteen and four in its first two years
in Division One. I'll be it in the Sunbelt.
But you're still moving up a level.
I, you know the only thing that would be the concern at the top
front would be maybe his age, you know 6263.
But you know I I I do maybe I'm just trying to be positive.
I do couch that with like, you know.
Everything at IU football is kind of a four or five year
window anyway. I know I joked earlier about you
know if you hire a young coach they're good, they're going to
leave and it's like that doesn't happen.
But it's like you know we we haven't had a lot of people like
well this is our next guy for 30 years, like that hasn't happened
a lot. So you know if this if he can
come in and and get this the ship going in the right
direction. In good at five or six years.
That's fantastic. So I'm.
I'm pretty fired up and what I like too is the early results.
I've been poking around on you know still fresh on college
football Reddit. A lot of the James Madison fans
are like, damn it, like, damn it, Which to me, like that's
always a good sign versus it's very concerning when you know.
You, you hire someone of the other team is like have fun with
that. Like, yeah, well, you brought up
a lot of good points. I mean the things, Look, I'll
caveat by saying this, no one knows anything.
Indiana's won press conferences before in terms of who they've
hired. Everybody loved Archie Miller.
Everybody thought that was a surefire hire on the basketball
side that didn't work out. So look, what What's fascinating
to me is yes, everybody loves this hire that I've seen.
There's there's been a couple of IU fans who are like, who is
this guy? But the vast majority of people,
particularly people that really pay attention to football, have
been fired up. National media seems to be like,
wow, that's not something that we expected Indiana to do.
You know, people from fan bases of other schools are like, wow,
that's an impressive hire. So to to be there.
National media with Indiana football is like we weren't
expecting them to have a team next year anyway.
That's right. Yeah.
No, no, there's something to be said for that.
But you know a lot of the idea of why would you fire Tom Allen?
You couldn't possibly get anybody better to come coach at
Indiana. This is a guy who, at least on
paper, while he doesn't have, you know, perhaps the the bona
fide FBS level, long time experience.
This is a guy who is a winner. He's a program builder.
He's a guy who has helped to successfully pilot a program
transitioning from FCS to FBS and not just that.
Like did it at a level that had national media chiding the NCAA
for not breaking their rules to allow James Madison to go play
in a bowl this year because there's a two year probation on
on you know programs rising up a level.
Like when you look at the the success that he's had at all
these different stops. It you know it.
It my thought has always been you're when you look at the
people who can coach IU football and and the specific issues that
IU football has that we've talked about so many times.
The the idea that it's felt like since Mallory left Indiana has
lacked an idea of what it is as an identity to be a good
football program to win. You know, they've gone through a
series of coaches that have either not built that or have
struggled to build it or have allowed it to dissipate on them.
This guy seems like the type of guy who has done that in every
place he's been. And you know, will it work at
the Big 10 level? Only time will tell.
But I'd like to remind everybody, and I tried to do
this a little bit on Twitter last night.
You just don't get a lot of, like considerably experienced
Power Five coaches coming in and coaching Big 10 schools.
Regardless, I mean, go through and look at the coaching hires.
I mean, outside of Matt Rule, Brett Bielema and Greg Schiano,
who was a special case because he just, he had nowhere else to
go. But back to Rutgers, It's all,
you know, coordinators at that level or it's group of five
coaches. You know, it's promotions from
within. It's not a situation where
you've got a bunch of people jumping that you know that I've
had a huge amount of success at the Power Five level.
Even Jonathan Smith, who everybody has uniformly praised,
is like a great hire. That's a guy that's got a losing
record career wise at Oregon State and you know it's Oregon
State, so you give him a a little bit of an asterisk there.
But my point is this feels like a very different type of hire
from what Indiana would normally have been able to pull off.
They didn't go the Mac route. They didn't go the coordinator
route. They went with a guy who's been
a program builder in a bunch of different places.
And that is going to be really fascinating to see how it plays
out. And I think that's why I'm
excited about it. You know, he's an older coach,
62 years old, as you said. I'm not worried about that.
Indiana, as we've talked about for many years, needs someone to
come in, reestablish what Mallory had established here,
which, my God, that was 35 years ago at this point.
You know, a culture of here's how you win games, here's how
you, you know, act as a team. And from my perspective, like
he's probably looking at this and saying this is maybe the
destination that I am aiming for.
You know, I maybe they're, you know, I'm not probably at the
age where a, a Power 5 school that's higher up in the Echelon
is going to take a shot on me. But I could build something here
that could be my legacy and that's a really interesting
thing. And look, the performance just
in general has been fascinating out of his teams, especially at
James Madison. He's got a tremendously young
coaching staff. I mean his his offensive
coordinators, like in his early 30s.
He's defensive coordinator, I believe is a younger guy as
well, seems to be recruiting really well and understands how
football recruiting at that level has to operate.
I mean, you don't serve as Nick Saban's recruiting coordinator
unless you know what you're doing, you know, and he's been
around college football royalty, not just Saban, who he knew from
when Saban coached with his dad at West Virginia, but he also
knows Bobby Bowden. Bobby Bowden, like that was the
guy, his dad who was the West Virginia head coach in the late
70s. That's the guy that he took over
for because Bowden left West Virginia in the mid 70s and went
to Florida State. His Kurt Cignetti's dad, Frank
Cignetti, senior, I think was was the guy that took over that
program. The reason why Signetti was an
assistant at North Carolina State was because Chaka Motto,
who was one of Bowden's most trusted assistants, was the head
coach at North Carolina State. So this is a guy steeped in
college football tradition. And as Patrick points out, the
Sunbelt is not the Big 10, FCS is not the Big 10.
And I think those are all really legitimate concerns.
I think though every coach that Indiana was looking at that was
in this particular echelon was going to have some question
marks around them. You know, we talked about guys
like Tom Herman. I mean, nobody knew if Tom
Herman had just flamed out and wasn't going to be somebody that
could continue to do it at this level or could win at a place
like Indiana. We talked about, you know, Paul
Crist, who a lot of people weren't excited about the way
that his tenure at Wisconsin and a lot of people thought he'd
lost whatever fastball he had. So I think whoever the head
coach hire was going to be here was going to be somebody that
people could say, well, that's not really a home run hire.
You know, there's there's questions about it.
There's going to be questions about everybody of all of those
options. As I've read through all of them
and really considered them. This feels like as sure of a bet
as you're going to get, knowing that there are no sure bets.
A lot of it's going to come down to what Indiana is going to do
to make Kurt Cignetti's time in Bloomington successful.
And we've already seen a little bit of that.
You know, we saw that announcement that came out.
It was an announcement, but the Indy Star had it about the nil
fund, like 3 million additional dollars of nil money coming in
for football specifically. That's huge.
We've seen some additional investment in football.
We saw, you know, the Wilkinson family investing in the new
weight room. You know what we're It's going
to be fascinating to see what Cignetti's contract details are,
not just for him, but for his assistant coaches.
This is it a part of an investment in Indiana football,
and that's going to be just as important as the hire.
It feels like if you can put those pieces around Kurt
Cignetti, he's going to know what to do with them because
he's clearly done more with less at lower levels.
And that's the kind of person that ultimately you're going to
need to coach at Indiana. Agree with all that.
The two things that I like is that, you know, he kind of
brings a little bit of the best of both worlds and that when we
hired Kevin Wilson there was a lot of video.
This is a guy who's been around greatness like you mentioned
with Signetti this, but you know with Wilson was you.
He had coached Sam Darnold and had all his connections.
You know, Sigdenit could go into anybody's, anybody, any
recruitment and say, look, I've, I've worked with Phillip Rivers,
Russell Wilson. You know, I've also got, you
know, Julio Jones and Mark Ingram.
You know, there's a lot of people under his purvey that he
could say. But what he has that Wilson
didn't is that, you know, he's also had the ability to build a
program, like to be at that top level, as you and I have talked
about. You know, that's something you
saw with Wilson. A lot of coordinators have a
tough time. You know, how do I have a go
from a coordinator to a head coach?
And that's something that Signetti has done.
So I love those two things together.
The other thing that I was just poking around on, and obviously
I can't say I've, you know, watched a ton of film with James
Madison the last couple years, but just looking at their stats
and I fully get Sunbelt is not the Big 10.
So these stats don't quite, you know, apples to apples, but you
know this is also where you need to.
You need to have a little bit of fun and also a little bit of
understanding that like you're just, you know, we didn't hire a
coach, the Big 10, so there's not going to be an apples to
apples comparison. But you look at, you know, James
Madison's quarterback this year, Jordan McLeod.
If you took his numbers and just plug them into the Big 10 this
season, understanding some belts, different In the Big 10
he would be second in attempts, first in yards, first in
touchdowns, and have a better passing percentage than the
Taglia Tagliavoa who led the Big 10 in passing.
So tag, if I low tag, if I low hands, well, he'll be gone.
He's of senior, he'll be gone soon enough to his brother.
We'll call him. There you go.
You know, but what that tells me is, you know, it, it does feel
like we're going to get a much more dynamic offense in
Bloomington. This is a team that threw the
ball a lot through a lot of yards, had, you know, 32
touchdowns last year, but did it at a very high percentage
understanding it's the Sunbelt. But you know, Kochu, 62, has
this kind of pedigree. You feel like that he has a
system and he's going to come in.
And work that system. And I think also as fans, you
know, like you and I have talked about, obviously we want to win
games, but there is a point where I just, I like to be
competitive and I like for the football to be enjoyable to
watch. And at least going off of what
you've seen him build at James Madison, it looks like we're not
going to get a team that's going to just do a, you know, run up
the middle for three times, go three and out and punt the ball
like it feels like we might be getting a more dynamic offense
as well, which I'm excited about.
It's in a you know from what I've seen and again I'm also not
an expert on James Madison. I would, I would actually, I
know Taylor bite sized bison is going to have a nice write up.
He's done a little bit already on Twitter about about James
Madison and Signetti and so I would go check that out as soon
as possible. But look, what I do know is that
it it is a more aggressive style.
It is a more like you look at what he's done at James Madison
as far as the S&P plus, which you know we love.
If you follow the podcast, you know what he has done in terms
of the respective levels of where the program is at in
relation to the rest of the division that they're in.
So you can do an apples to apples comparison.
I mean, this is a guy whose teams haven't been lower than
essentially the top third of the entire division that they're in,
whether he's at IU, Pennsylvania, Elon, James
Madison. I mean, this was, this is a
really good James Madison team he's got this year just based
upon the statistics. And again, we don't know if that
will translate to the Big 10, but I think it's got a good
chance to. And I think what I love the most
about Cignetti, from the little that I've read so far, he places
emphasis on the right things. There was a quote that I read
about him. You know, say I'd like you know
the the, the key to all of the defensive stuff is like having a
strong defensive line, which seems like a small thing.
But coming off of multiple years of, you know, I I wouldn't
necessarily call the three 35A gimmick defense per SE.
But this idea of like, you know, you got all these extra
positions, which I know you were making fun of, which I agreed
with a great deal in our last podcast.
Everything seemed to be focused on these extras as opposed to
the the core fundamentals. And he seems to know how to do
that. I'm really encouraged by the
fact he's got such a young staff.
I mean, one of the things you see with older coaches a lot of
times is that they really do get locked into either family
members being on their staff or people that they've coached with
for years. And this seems like a guy who
has put together a young, vibrant staff of people who
understand football. It's funny, like you you, his
offensive coordinator's name is Mike Shanahan.
It's not that it's not the same Mike Shanahan, they're not
related, but this is a guy who played with them at IUP who's
followed along with him and seems to have grown into a
pretty dynamic and interesting offensive coordinator.
I mean people like that that that this particular head coach
seems to bring with him. I like that.
I mean, it seems like he's still, you know, to some degree,
in love with the nuances of the game and figuring out, you know,
we'll see what happens, Patrick notes.
Don't get too far ahead of yourself with family on staff.
And I know what he's talking about.
His brother just got fired as the OC at Pitt.
We'll we'll see what happens with all of that, but by and
large, what he's done up to this point.
I like the fact that he has not just stuck to his old standbys,
he's tried to modernize what he's done to some degree.
So well and also that you know and we're I mean all we can do
is pull off of little bits and pieces that we've seen.
But you know, I I was watching the interview this morning when
he was on Pat McAfee and. You know, it's like it kind of
struck me that, you know, that that's something that Tom Allen
wouldn't do or just if he did, would do, would do it
incorrectly somehow. And it was nice to see Signetti,
you know, hold his own on McAfee, kind of have a little
bit of teeth toward the NCAA, like have a little bit of, you
know, bite and then, you know, talk about his philosophy and
what he's been doing there. And you you saw like the the
spirit there. And again, going back to some of
our other hires, you know that was something that very early
on. You know, with Wilson it was
like man, this guy's not, he's not an enthusiasm builder.
It's like he's he's doing it his way and he's kind of off on his
own and you just got to be along for the ride.
And then you know, TomTom Allen had a had his Elio thing, which,
you know, it was that kind of approach.
It always works. If you're winning the minute
you're not winning, it becomes a very kind of grading system that
you get kind of tired of. And so I just look at this as
like I do think that for a program that is you and I have
mentioned many times had really hit an apathy wall and it
somehow burned through it and gone even farther into an apathy
black hole. I think somebody like Cignetti,
from what I've seen, you know that the guy who was on McAfee,
it's like that. That's the kind of guy who could
help build some interest and maybe, you know, make IU an
interesting place again and be able to do.
I don't want to say a lot with a little because he did a lot at
James Madison, but you know to get McAfee there and and all
those things, that's a lot to do at a university like James
Madison. It makes me feel like he can
help build some of that enthusiasm here and maybe take
little wins and turn them into something a little bit bigger,
which is it's all IU needs. Yeah, it is.
And and look, I mean, I think I feel like to some degree the
Allen era has caused a lot of people to forget that there's a
bunch of different ways that you can win football games.
And then it is possible to win football games in a consistent
manner, being aggressive on both sides of the ball, having,
having a more holistic understanding of of what you
need to do to win. I mean, it felt like to a large
degree IU was. So success at IU under Alan was
so predicated on the specific things that Alan wanted to do on
a game by game basis going right.
And if they didn't go right there wasn't really a Plan B and
you know whether that's fair or unfair, that was the perception.
And Allen really only seemed to recruit in one particular area
which was Florida. You know he he really seemed to
you know and and he struggled to develop players.
All those things are open questions.
The one thing I am kind of curious about with Cignetti is
you know how does his recruiting work at A at Indiana BI mean
he's he's not a Florida guy. He's not.
I mean, while he's from Pennsylvania and coached at IUP,
he's been in the in the Carolinas or Virginia here in
that, in that Piedmont area for the last, what, 8-9, ten years.
It'll be interesting to see how that transitions.
But I do think given what Cignetti knows, that we know, he
knows about how programs run, given his pedigree, given his
understanding of having been in a place like Alabama, having
been in a place like NC State. You know, I I right now would
feel like this is a guy who is equipped to figure out how to
maximize what is at his disposal at a place like Indiana.
Now again, a lot of it comes back to NIL.
You know how is Indiana going to be able to to fare in the in the
portal? But this feels like the kind of
guy who's going to really engender a lot of excitement
from recruits, which was I'm sorry, it just wasn't there
under Tom Allen. As much as people want to blame
a lack of NIL dollars or this or that, the reality was like by
the end people outside didn't want to come and play for Tom
Allen. By and large.
I mean there were there. You certainly had some people
and some of those people were were good, but you you know
Indiana didn't get a quarterback.
They had experience in the portal last year, not because of
nil money, but because nobody wanted to go play in a system
where you would already run through multiple starting
quarterbacks and none of them could get the job done.
You know that really does make a difference and that this feels.
There was a quote from Mitchell Page, former IU player.
The IU football hire feels crazy.
Typically a guy like that goes to a place like Texas or
Florida. That's, that's what I'm talking
about. I mean, this is a guy with some
buzz around him within the community.
This is a guy that clearly, you know, I think vibes with players
on a level that Allen's Leo culture only kind of partially
got there on. And and certainly, you know, I'm
not trying to denigrate Allen, per SE, but I'm saying this
feels like the type of guy who can engender a lot more
excitement among the people that need to come in and play the
game. Because all you have to do is
look at his track record of success up to this point, You
know, at, I mean everybody heard about James Madison this year.
You know that you can walk into a living room or or walk into a
conference room with a potential player and say look what we did
in a very short period of time at a place that was fighting as
much of an uphill battle as Indiana is fighting, that's
that's going to be exciting. And I think if he can marry that
to a system that maximizes people's talents, you know,
that's that's something that I'm really intrigued.
To see what happens. Well, I also.
I I go back to you know it's it's somebody who has head
coaching experience who has experience building programs and
it you know it it feels like he's unlike some of the other
names that were on that list you know where they were either
assistants or would have been a first time head coach or you
know I I feel like this is really it goes back to something
we talked about the end of our season pod that you know for as
bad as the season has been as as unhappy as we've been.
There are pieces there, like Soresby has looked good,
McCauley looks like a good wide receiver.
Like there is a world where I'm, I'm immediately as a fan already
excited for next year. Because it's like man, if if
Cignetti comes in and he knows what he's doing and he can come
in like and he he just has that feel of a guy, he's like, all
right, I'm going to come in on Friday and here's my plan, like
here's what we got to do, like we're going to start doing this.
And it does feel like you have a quarterback who might be able to
do what you need to do already there.
And you might have a quarterback wide receiver combo that's
there. It's like some of the pieces are
already there. And then, you know, if you can
maybe bring a couple of the guys from James Madison, you know,
maybe you have a couple guys like I know Dion's kid and
there's other things there. But, you know, you bring some
people from a different level. It's like maybe they have what
it takes at the at the Big 10 level that they weren't getting,
you know, correctly looked at. You get a little buzz in
recruiting and you know they're. It it feels like maybe we're not
so far away from where we needed to be.
So I'm excited about that. I have a question for you.
There's a little bit back back to the process a little bit and
this is stuff you kind of talked about on Twitter or some of the
discords we've you've been a part of with other people.
You were saying how you know that there was some smoke and
like don't don't buy into the smoke but yet and and you know
IE was trying to keep it tight lipped but it did feel like
Cignetti was out there early and it felt like.
Like this was the way it was going as of last night and this
morning. Are you surprised that it it was
not as tight lipped as maybe you were expecting or is it just
there was there was already a Nate, you know there's already a
list and it's like that's that's who it was.
You know you can only keep so much tight lipped.
Well, I think actually I think most of the details were done
when stuff started to leak out yesterday.
But I think it's important to note, like go back and look at
those job boards, go back and look at the names that were
getting mentioned. I don't remember Kurt Cignetti
being on most of them. If if any of them, it was Jason
Candle from Toledo. It was Mike Heart.
It was Justin Fry. It was.
Yeah, yeah, Crist, I think it is.
Yeah, no, it's fine. But I mean, Christ would be an
interesting choice. He, you know, not but but no,
you know, Cignetti's name didn't really fully pop up and
certainly didn't pop up as a central candidate until
yesterday. I mean, I again, I think Scott
Dolson did a really good job as he did with the Woodson hire of
keeping this under wraps and using some really good
misdirection so that really people didn't know.
I mean we heard more about Cignetti and tied with the Duke
job than we heard about him being tied with the Indiana job.
And so I look at it and I say this was a good job by Dolson of
keeping this under wraps. And as as Erock says on Monday,
I didn't think Cignetti, you know, was was even a
possibility, thought it was too good.
You know, you'll, you'll get people who will put names out.
And I'm talking about reporters, you know, people who so, you
know, supposedly have sources that that didn't really have
this as a a notion. And so again, I think Indiana,
often times people think they know what's going on.
Indiana does a really good job of keeping things under wraps
and they do a really good job of misdirecting people.
And this is the type of coach, you know, and I think, you know,
people have talked about Willie Fritz as a possibility.
People have talked about a couple of others.
This was a more realistic option in terms of culture because I
don't know how many coaches that are in the South were really
planning on coming up to to the North.
But people, I think, looked at this and said that's the profile
of the coach, if he's going to go anywhere, Was going to go
somewhere else, Was going to go to a bigger program, a program
that had more, more bona fides from a football perspective,
obviously. Still some interesting things to
keep in mind. I was asked by Mark Katie to
address whether he'll come here quickly for Portal editions or
stay at James Madison for the bowl game.
I mean, clearly it's important for Indiana to get somebody in
place. I do think that it is possible
theoretically to come handle portal business, get things
going and still potentially coaching a bowl game, but it's
not ideal. I mean, people forget Akalin
Devore stuck around through that cycle, coached in the Gator Bowl
and then went to Fresno State. It wasn't like he jumped ship
immediately. I don't know what's going to
happen with this. I would prefer to see him in in
town and doing. I use business.
But you know as as much as I would prefer to see that I don't
think it's 100% deal breaker. You know for in my mind like I
don't think it's I I don't think I don't think Indiana's going to
be that far behind the 8 ball moving forward if if if he
doesn't leave James Madison immediately but it'll be
interesting to see how it goes. But now look I think overall
Indiana did a good job of keeping the coaching search
under wraps. I think they deserve a lot of
credit for wrapping this up so quickly.
I mean, you know, what is it, fucking four days.
You know, the the news broke through, you know, through agent
sources at 1:00 on Thursday and that's quite a a short time
period given that we didn't get news about Tom Allen being fired
until 9:00 on Sunday. I mean you're talking about less
than four full days or less than five full that my math is bad.
So, you know, look, obviously, I think it's funny, I remember
when the announcement came out either Sunday night or Monday,
that IU has engaged a search firm.
There were legitimately people that thought that IU, IU had
just hired the search firm. And it's like we got to be
smarter than this. People like the, the idea that
IU hadn't a, the idea that IU woke, you know, Scott Dolson
woke up on Saturday or Sunday. It was like, you know what, I'm
going to fire Tom Allen. We're going to start from
scratch. Like that's not how this stuff
works. IU IU.
Put a, put a, PUT A to do on my list for Monday to hire a search
firm, but after lunch, we'll we'll get to that later.
Yeah. You know the idea, the idea that
IU hadn't done a lot of due diligence ahead of time,
identified the two or three candidates they really thought
were going to be worthwhile. And you know, what we heard in
the reporting that I trust on this is that IU would really put
a premium on head coach experience and this guy.
Absolutely checked that box in a slightly different way than we
thought but he but he clearly checked that box.
I wanted to get to a question from Chad Schwarzkopf.
I don't claim to be an expert in college football but I'm good at
digging beyond his age. Not much negative defined not to
harsh the vibe but what are some negatives you guys see.
So I mean, look, I think the obvious ones we talked about a
little bit earlier, A, you just don't know if a guy at the lower
reaches of FBS or the FCS level is going to translate up to this
level. I actually think many times they
do. I I mentioned I was talking
about this with with Jared over at Assembly call on text
yesterday, I get a lot of Kailyn de Boer vibes off of this type
of a higher. Keep in mind, like De Boer was a
head coach at the D3 level, you know, had been a, you know, kind
of rattled around in the lower reaches of college football for
most of his 30s and early 40s. He gets the job at Fresno State
as an offensive coordinator. Then he goes to Indiana, which,
you know, is not exactly a destination spot within college
football historically, then goes back to Fresno State.
Then he gets the shot at Washington after two years.
But that wasn't a guy. If you looked at his pedigree
initially that you would have been like, wow, that's a great
head coach who stuff is going to translate.
There's always the possibility that that could be an issue.
You know, we talked earlier due to his background in college
football and his, the lineage between the Bowden and Saban
trees. I'm not too worried about him
because I think he knows what it looks like.
But you never know. You know, I, I, I, we still
don't know what Indiana's structure is going to be around
Signetti from a contract perspective, from an assistant
pool perspective. We've heard a little bit on the
nil front and that is certainly positive.
That could be a real obstacle, you know, and look, ultimately a
lot of it comes down to how does he adapt to a place where there
isn't a real focus on football culture.
And yeah, I think one of the things, if you, if you look at
his time that Elon does not have a great historical football
culture. I think you can mitigate some of
those concerns through looking at that kind of thing.
But again, I think the biggest, the biggest concerns on the part
of the person that you hire is how well do they translate and
how do they handle now being in a position where you're near or
at the bottom of the pecking order, You're in a state that
doesn't have a lot of innate football talent and the stuff
that it, the people that it does have always go elsewhere.
But I think you would have that question with any of the
candidates. And as far as track record stuff
is concerned, I I feel really good about the track record
here. And again, as we heard earlier,
this just seems like the type of person who generally has just
never considered IU because IU hasn't been in like they haven't
either haven't considered them or they haven't been in the
running for them. Yeah, I mean the The thing is
when you're when you're Indiana football, you're never going to
have just the perfect hottest candidate out there.
There's always going to be issues and my.
I I hear that and it's like that is I've always been fascinated
with you know coaches. I always use Archie as an
example like it should have worked like he should have been
able to make the leap up. It didn't totally different
discussion but it's like you know coaches who go from one
level to the next level it it really seems to be there's
really not a lot like it's hard to figure out what makes that
work and what makes it doesn't. But you know to to that to to
the comment. You know about like he has no,
you know, higher level experience like well look at the
coaching board, like a lot of the guys, it's not like we had
12, you know, 12 options on there with guys who had
experience. There was, you know, not Christ
but Christ. You know, Paul Christ has some
experience at Wisconsin. I'm going through the list and
you had Dan Mullen who was quickly off the list or didn't
seem to get any traction, but he had some experience, Mississippi
State and Florida, but everyone else was and I guess Jack, you
know, Dicker to Washington State.
You know everyone else was either an assistant or had kind
of lower you know whether it's Tulane or Toledo you're kind of
at that next level. You know it's it's not like you
know guys who are at you know you know Mississippi State are
looking to come here you know leave SEC schools to come to the
Big 10. So you you're going to have to
give somewhere you mentioned the contract.
I am curious to see what they do with the contract, what the
buyout looks like, you know and I think at this point you're.
You're kind of beholden to agents.
You're kind of beholden to what the market will bear.
And I would just urge people, you know, I think people are
obviously a little bit, you know, burned by the last buy up.
But all I would say is 2 things. First off, as I've said many
times, they have a nice TV contract.
IU will be just fine. Like they have donors, like
everyone's going to be fine and for the most part, it's not your
money. The second thing is if you see a
contract with a. Sizable buyout for a three to
four year period. I I know it might suck in three
to four years if things don't workout, but it's like you have
to remember at this moment. That is the price of playing
ball with the big boys and that is what all the other big boy
teams do and not trying to you know talk it away or justify it.
But it's just like if you want to suddenly be, hey we don't
want to get burned with our buyout, well guess what you're
not going to get a high level coach.
You're just not look at Texas A and MI guarantee they just pay
the Jimbo buyout. I guarantee their their new
coaches contract is going to have a huge effing buyout for
the first three to four years also.
I mean, look, as I was talking about the other day, you know,
Frank Wright just got fired by Carolina after 11 games.
Nobody talked about his buyout. And you could say, well, that's
not college, that's pro. I I keep telling you, folks,
college football is Pro Football.
It's just a different level of Pro Football.
This is where things are AT. And look, they signed a long or
a big buyout with Allen. We've talked about the
circumstances of that, a big buyout.
Look, I just, I just love the fact that IU has shown that
they're going to financially invest in a football program.
Think about the amount of money that Indiana will have spent
here on football specifically over the last six months.
And that includes the 15 and a half million dollars that
they're going to give Tom Allen to walk away.
So look, I'm, I'm really fascinated by how all of this
role's moving forward. A couple other things I wanted
to mention before. I think Rod Carey at some point
goes to the office is like so that that two year deal that I
got like we're just that's I know Scott I know you're busy I
know you got a lot of stuff going on that that that was
guaranteed right. Just making sure like, I know
you haven't paid out everybody yet, but Carrie might be the
biggest winner here. Yeah, I know.
Well, you know that. Yeah.
Well, it's funny. I it will be interesting.
You know, you look at it. I'm curious who Cignetti brings
with him as opposed to who he brings in from elsewhere as far
as his staff. And we don't know.
I think all these things, it's almost pointless to speculate.
I again, I'll go back to what I said at the beginning of the
podcast. I'm impressed at how young his
staff is. You look at his his coaching
staff, There's only one person on his coaching staff that
graduated from college earlier than than 2000 and that person
graduated in 1999. And you know he's got some some
people from the state of Indiana currently on his staff.
Pat Koontz, who was Notre Dame guy, played for the Colts for a
little bit, is the D line coach. Bryant Haynes is the linebackers
coach and the D coordinator. He's a Ball State guy.
So look, all that I'm sure will be revealed.
I I feel like I trust this guy to know who to put in positions
and we'll see what he says in the initial press conference and
what comes up afterwards. But it's just it's really, it's
a fascinating change of pace for IU to be grabbing this type of a
coach and you know someone who has chosen to go to Indiana.
Because look again this is a guy who he could have probably had
the Duke job without a whole lot of problem would have made a
natural fit. He coached at Elon, which is
just down the road from Durham knows the area well.
Duke's a lower pressure job that you obviously you can win at,
whether it's Mike Elko or or David Cutcliffe.
So to to choose to go to Indiana, to me is really
fascinating because AI think it it it represents that Indiana
has decided to make a sizable investment in football and that
that has impressed this guy enough that he wants to come to
IU. But it also I think is
impressive that Indiana, looking at their football program when
it would have been a lot more financially expedient to say
this sucks. We don't like the direction that
it's going, but we're going to, we're going to eat it for
another year, we'll pay less next year and then we'll figure
it out. Not only did they say no, that's
not good enough. Then they went out and got an
incredibly hot coaching commodity, A guy who's been a
head coach, albeit not at the top levels, but has one
Everywhere he's been, has built programs at places that are not
easy to build, programs where he's been.
That feels like the type of guy that Indiana would want to have
as their head football coach. And to me, that's where right
now I'm excited. And again, I'll say what I said
at the beginning of the show, we don't know how this will go.
Indiana winning the press conference at Indiana is not the
same as winning football games at Indiana.
And we all have seen that in other sports.
But if you're going to go off of what we can react to right now,
which is who the person is that they hired, what they've done
and how well we think that will mesh here.
Having followed IU football for as long as I have, Scott, I
think you feel the same way. This feels like the type of
profile that can work here and it's very different from the
profiles that we've seen among some of the more recent people
that have been hired here. I agree.
I mean, I think you and I are similar with the search
committee. I wanted somebody who had some
head coaching experience because that's been the profile that has
worked at Indiana. It's a little lower level than
what I was expecting. But you know, you're right and
I'm always taking a step back and it's like, you know, in the
end none of this matter. I'll know in three years.
Like we'll all know in three to four years if this worked.
And it's kind of the dumb answer, but I will say that you
know, unlike. Any other time, except for maybe
out of the Dinaro Dinardo era. You know the apathy thing had
gotten so low that we're at a point where winning the press
conference actually I does think matter a little bit here just to
get enthusiasm up. So you know the fact that.
The fact that he comes in, he has a little bit of St. credit.
You know, the fact that most of the national media is like,
whoa, that's a that's a nice hire, like good job by India,
like you're getting a little bit of a pat in the back from the
way that he seems. We'll see.
It seems like the press conference is going to have a
little bit of juice, a little bit energy like.
I think all those things are actually important at this point
in time because apathy had gotten so bad that you need
someone to come in, you know, like like again, Wilson was was
an interesting hire, but he wasn't really a rah, rah guy.
So it's like I think some of that is is needed now.
First of all, thanks to Xander Diamond, who just retweeted our
live stream here. Xander, we miss you.
Thank you so much. Man, I just, I just got AI.
Just got AI was just making a clip art for my phone of him
smoking the cigar. So, Xander, if you're listening,
like that's going to be my new sticker for the next couple of
weeks. Tremendous.
Jack Siegel had a great comment earlier that fits right in with
what you just said. There needs to be a full rebrand
for 2024 with Cignetti. This should figuratively and
literally feel like a new era. And I think you're right.
I mean, obviously we're going to hedge our bets a little because
you don't know until the rubber hits the road.
But it is important not just that Indiana win the press
conference nationally, but that Indiana gets people excited
about Indiana football. I mean, you and I have followed
this program for so long. It was so gratifying to watch
the excitement around Indiana football in 2019-2020, the lead
up to 2021. And it was so disappointing and
gutting and frustrating to watch it go away so quickly.
It just was like, wait what? Come back where?
Where are you going? Like what happened?
It just it felt like I want to live in the Iowa tailgate the
rest of my life. Like the tailgate before the
Iowa game. Like that moment was great.
Go ahead. I know it.
It was, it was absolutely gutting.
If you really cared about IU football, to watch IU football
go from a spot where it was the feel good story of the college
football world. Everybody loved what was
happening in Bloomington to winning three Big 10 games total
over a three-year span and to watch IU fans just essentially
give up again and say, oh, well, back to the old way of doing
business. And you're right.
I mean, like Kevin Wilson was, you know, he was, he was almost
like a technocrat in a way. He, Kevin Wilson did a lot of
really good things to build the pieces that made IU football
relevant in the Big 10. But he was just not the type of
guy that was going to go get people fired up.
Now, you know, we'll see how Cignetti handles being in the
press conference and how he handles working with fans.
I think it was it was one of the big concerns people had with
Paul Crist. Crist's track record looked
good, but everybody was like, that's boring.
I mean, Wisconsin's fan's nickname for him is Coach Dad,
which isn't really the vibe I think Indiana wanted to get.
And while you know, Tom Allen, as you mentioned, certainly
could get people fired up about the idea of IU football, he
could not deliver the results. And eventually the rah, rah
stuff just felt really hollow and it almost felt like it was
almost a slap in the face to some degree for fans who were
like Coach, we get it, Leo, please show us something that
would allow us to believe. And it just was never
forthcoming. And so it is.
All of this stuff is important. Indiana has to be a program that
attracts donor interest and and that's where Scott Dolson has to
come in and really fundraise off the back of this and and help to
elevate what Indiana's doing. But fans have to get excited
again. People will do this.
I mean you know the the thing that drives me nuts.
I remember that Cincinnati game in 2021 when you know the the
the the infamous McFadden targeting game the the the
stands were packed, students were there and students kept
showing up that that year, the next year just waiting for
something to get excited about and it never materialized.
And by the middle of this year everybody was gone.
It's going to take some time to build that back up.
It's going to take some results, but it feels like the the
pedigree, the the the the overall, like the the profile
that this coach hire brings in could help to energize things.
And I think in this new era of college football, it becomes
more and more important than Indiana to do that.
Indiana just can't afford anymore to treat football like
an afterthought, and I don't think that they have in terms of
trying to put some of the structures in place.
I think that a lot of what's happened over the last three
years has been an erosion of trust between IU and the donor
base and Allen and a lot of reasons for that for occurring,
which really are outside the purview of this particular
episode of the podcast. Maybe we'll talk about it in the
future, but as as Chad mentioned, you know, watch the
video of of Chad Cignetti on college game day.
He'll do great in the press conference.
I I think you're right. And I'm really excited to see
how that goes. Indiana fans deserve something
to get excited about. This is a great example of
something to get excited about. And I for 1:00 AM, excited, I
didn't think I was going to be excited.
I was expecting to kind of have to hold my powder on this and be
like, well, you know, we'll see. We're going to support the new
coach. We'll give them time, but at the
end of the day, a lot of work's got to be done to rebuild this
roster. You got to make decisions on who
you're going to try to get back out of the portal.
You got to make decisions about who you're going to bring in
from outside. You know, obviously, like we had
a question from Ethan McCartney about, you know, you you want D
Mac or Soresby returning. You know, It's one of those
things where at the end of it all, I'm there needs to be a
complete reconfiguration in how IU football thinks about its
roster. And I think having a fresh
perspective come in and look at all these players and make
decisions about how we want to play and where this is going,
that's the really important thing right now.
Well, if we talk about no, his Sigdetti's, you know, his time
on on game day, his time on McAfee, it's like, I'm not sure
any other coach that we've had could have done that.
And again, it's a it's one point of reference, but I think back
to like the very, very weird reference.
But the movie Private parts about Howard Stern, like he gets
on to WWNBC in New York and like it's a.
Like this stuffy old, you know news guy that's like that guy,
that guy can't handle on this set.
Like Signetti was able to do it. Like that's where it's like his
age. He doesn't act like his age.
He didn't look like a 62 year old guy out there.
When you talk about enthusiasm, just the other thing that I will
hit something you've mentioned before, but I will kind of re
mention here, the schedule is very advantageous next year.
You look at our schedule, you know, you know, getting into it,
you're going to start the season with, you know, FIU in Western
Illinois at home. Assuming we're going to be
better than last year, which I hope so, with a new coach, you
could be two and O going into the UCLA game, which is a road
game. Fine, You're two and one.
You come back for Charlotte and Maryland.
You could, you know Maryland has the quarterback that I can't
mention, but we'll have a new quarter belt and somebody new,
you know, no longer to his younger brother will be there.
Who knows what's going to happen with them.
You could be four and one going into that game at Northwestern.
Northwestern is going to have a new coach who knows what's going
to happen with them. You could be.
I mean I'm just I'm I'm very rosy colored glass here.
But I don't think it's out of the realm if you you know you
get a little bit better. You beat Maryland, who fell off
a Cliff this year after they beat us.
You beat Northwestern. You could be 5 and one coming
home to host Norton, Nebraska and Washington back-to-back.
That's gonna with a new coach and A5.
I mean that's some excitement where it's like, hey man, it's
October 19th against Nebraska. We're playing to go to a bowl
again. I'm, I'm taking the glasses half
full side of all this. But I don't think looking at,
you know, FIU, Western Illinois, Charlotte, Maryland and
Northwestern, I don't think winning all of those is out of
the realm of possibility. Even if you're four and two.
Yeah, yeah. No, I was.
No, I was gonna say it's a great runway.
It's a great runway for a new coach, which I, I have to think
played into the idea of if you're going to make a change,
do it now. You got eight home games.
You got a winnable Rd. game at UCLA.
This is really, you know obviously you got to rebuild
both lines a bit more. I mean Taylor did a great job on
bite sized bison and laying out the most important people in the
portal and most of them are lineman.
You know, I mean they're they're that's where Indiana this is
where nil comes in. But it's also where a vision
from the head coach is going to be really important and that's
got to happen right away. And and Scott, they just
officially announced it, the graphic is up.
IU just announced Cignetti officially as the head coach.
Like all we had was the unofficial stuff did.
They go with sources. Did they go with sources?
Say IU, they did. They did not go with sources
though. Anyway, we've gone almost an
hour here, so I think we're going to wrap up any let's get
final thoughts from you before we wrap things up here.
No, I mean everything. It would all be a recap of what
we said. I think this is, you know, I
think it's a really good hire. It feels like we've won the
press conference, even the press conference hasn't happened yet.
You know, you're always going to be excited with a new coach just
because you know that they, at this point, everything is
perfect and everything could be the best possible outcome.
It's probably not going to turn out this way.
This is still a roster that you know, won one Big 10 game this
this year and really struggled to beat.
Akron, you know, had some issues.
But as you and I both saw, it's not one of the most talent, you
know, direct rosters I've seen in my in my lifetime watching IU
football, like I watch this team, it's like there's some,
there's some pieces there. It did feel like it was a little
bit mismanaged. And so I I'm excited, I'm happy.
I I like everything I've heard. But you know now as you said
before, now the rubber hits the road, you know, how is it?
How is it going to engage the portal?
How are we going to do a transfers?
I would you know, I don't think you have to tell IU fans to have
some patience because normally there's a little bit of patience
there. But I would say just, you know
let's wait and see see how it goes.
And you know, I think a great first step I'll all I'll say to
Signetti is a great first step is let's name a starting
quarterback going into that FIU game.
That would be a great way to start this off season is just be
like hey I have a vision of one quarterback who's going to lead
our team. Yes.
No it's it's I'm excited. Yeah, it's it's a good, good.
It's a good day for IU and I'm I'm thrilled.
I I think overall you you look at all of the the factors, all
the variables, this feels like as good as Indiana was going to
do in this cycle and I think any team that hired this guy was
going to probably feel the same way and that's exciting for
Indiana to be in that spot. Sorry.
And the last thing I'll say is it does feel like for the first
time in, you know, continuing this process, it does feel like
IU is treating football like a like like one of the big boys.
Like they went and they they fired the coach.
They paid their buyout and then they went out and they got one
of the the hotter coaches. In the realm that IU was able to
get, we're obviously not going to, you know, steal Jimbo Fisher
or somebody away. But it's like we we got, you
know, for for our level, we got probably the best, hottest coach
we're going to be able to get. And so it felt like we really
didn't take the cheap route or the simple route or like, hey,
you know, no, no knock on like a Mike Hart or something.
We're just going to take the guy with connections and kind of
sneak out. It's like it felt like we
treated this like, hey, what's a real national search?
Let's get the best guy we can possibly get, spend the most and
do it right. So it feels like we're
continuing to take football seriously, which I like.
And look, we've said it before, Indiana is not like other
programs. There's a real foundation that
has to be rebuilt at IU that hasn't been there for a while
now. And you want somebody who's
capable of doing that. And This is why, no disrespect
to a Mike Hart or a Justin Fry or or some of those kind of up
and coming assistance, I just don't think Indiana was in the
position to hire somebody like that.
They need someone who's been a head coach.
They need someone who's run a program.
They need someone who's been connected to successful programs
at other places in the country who can bring that perspective
and bring that focus on winning. This is a crucial time for IU
football and I'm excited that this is the direction they're
going. I wasn't.
I'm not going to claim that this was the guy I wanted from the
beginning, but the more I've looked into it, the more I'm
excited about what we're seeing and I'm looking forward to
seeing him in the first press conference and seeing what he
does the rest of the day. Anyway, we'll go ahead and wrap
up. Scott, I appreciate you hopping
on. I appreciate you.
Man go enjoy. Go enjoy Hawaii, man.
Go. We're gonna go.
We're on vacation.
We're gonna go ahead and do that for a little bit.
Anyway, thanks to all you folks for watching.
Really appreciate it. We'll be back next week.
We'll have some more content as we recap what's going on with
this hire. We we'll have plenty to talk
about, I'm sure by that point. So anyway, for Scott, I'm Galen.
Thanks to Home Field Apparel, our presenting sponsor.
Be sure to tune in to the rest of the shows on the back home
network as we cover IU basketball, both men's and
women's. And we continue to cover the new
era of IU football. And congratulations to head
coach Kurt Cignetti, the next coach of Indiana University
football. We'll catch you folks.
On the flip side, bring back the Bison, So everybody.