Indiana football reached the big time last year. They won a series of offseason battles in hopes of staying there.
BLOOMINGTON — Indiana football coach Curt Cignetti knows better than most that success creates opportunity.
Cignetti climbed up the coaching ranks from Division II all the way to the Power Four one winning season at a time.
He’s already planted his flag in Bloomington — he signed a lucrative new extension after IU’s 10-0 start to 2024 that will pay him $8 million a year through 2032 — but he recognized the Hoosiers’ first-ever appearance in the College Football Playoff would open doors for many of his coaches and players.
“Your antenna is always up,” Cignetti told The Herald-Times in an offseason sit-down interview.
Cignetti managed to keep all eight IU players who won All-Big Ten honors, including three All-Americans, with eligibility left on the roster while bringing back all but one (quarterbacks coach Tino Sunseri) of his 10 on-field assistant coaches.
Indiana is one of just five teams in the Big Ten that didn’t change at least one of its coordinators. There were three teams in the conference — Maryland, Nebraska and Ohio State — that replaced both, and Cignetti has five coaches on his staff who have been with him for three or more seasons.
That continuity across the roster and coaching staff helps explain the confidence Cignetti has going into the 2025 season.
“I get questions, how are you going to sustain it? We're not looking to sustain it, we're looking to improve it,” Cignetti said at Big Ten media days. “And the way you do that is by having the right people on the bus, upstairs in the coaches' offices, downstairs in the locker room.”
Indiana football overcomes ‘anxious moments’ to keep talented roster intact
Indiana’s draft hopefuls with eligibility left didn’t keep fans waiting in the aftermath of a disappointing 27-17 College Football Playoff opening-round loss to Notre Dame.
Linebacker Aiden Fisher got the ball rolling by announcing plans to run it back for 2025 with a social media post two days after the game. Defensive end Mikail Kamara and cornerback D’Angelo Ponds quickly followed suit.
At Big Ten media days, wide receiver Elijah Sarratt told The Herald-Times that Cignetti gave players the space to make their own decision. They huddled with their respective families, but the general sentiment among the group was that if everyone came back, they would have the makings of another postseason contender.
There weren’t any meaningful departures in the transfer portal either.
The 13 scholarship players who entered the portal in the winter combined for 14 starts last season, with cornerback Jamier Johnson accounting for 10 of those. The Hoosiers signed multiple experienced players at the position (Pitt’s Ryland Gandy and NIU’s Amariyun Knighten) before Johnson’s departure even became official.
“They like the program, they believe in the program and they have relationships with each other and relationships with the coaches and (head strength coach) Derek (Owings),” Cignetti said. “They came into JMU and they developed and got a little chip on their shoulder, had something to prove and continued to develop. Why would you go somewhere else?”
Beyond the loyalty IU players felt towards Cignetti, he had the NIL resources at his disposal to keep everyone happy while remaining active in the portal.
"I had a pretty good idea what my number would be early on, and so we were able to go to work," Cignetti said without revealing any specific figures.
It was all smooth sailing until outside forces threatened to upend IU’s feel-good offseason midway through spring camp. Cignetti, like many coaches, heard the whispers of big money deals being offered to basketball players in the transfer portal ahead of an expected settlement in the House v. NCAA case.
There was initial optimism that the judge in the case would accept the terms of the settlement before the spring window for football opened for 10 days on April 16, but outstanding issues delayed final approval of the deal until June.
“That was the only time where there were some anxious moments,” Cignetti said. “We had a couple kids come in and indicate that school ‘X' had reached out with big numbers. When spring ended, as the head coach, you were wondering who else might be coming to see you. We all read what was going on.”
Cignetti told reporters at Big Ten media days that an unnamed team offered one of his players $1.5 million to enter the spring portal. He told The Herald-Times in May that he had conversations with multiple players who received interest from other programs.
It made for a unique balancing act for Cignetti, who handles his team’s purse strings. He isn’t one of the many collegiate coaches rushing to hire a general manager ―”I’m the GM and the head coach” — and he's gone on record saying the process isn’t all that complicated.
The uncertainty in the spring was different — Cignetti had to proceed with caution as he looked to address a few needs coming out of camp while holding back enough funds to play a little defense.
“We really didn't lose anybody we tried to keep,” Cignetti said. “I think it speaks volumes to the culture and direction of the program."
Indiana athletics ‘scrambles the jets’ as blue bloods circled coaching staff
When Indiana president Pam Whitten crossed paths with defensive coordinator Bryant Haines after the 2024 season, she pulled him aside for a brief chat. The conversation came at a time when his name was being floated as a candidate for several prominent job openings.
Whitten simply wanted Haines to know how much the school valued his contributions to IU’s historic season. Haines was a finalist for the Broyles Award as the architect of a Hoosiers defense that ranked No. 2 in total defense (256.3 yards allowed) and No. 6 in scoring defense (15.6 points allowed).
It wasn’t long before Indiana announced a new contract for Haines — the second in as many months — that made him one of only a handful of coordinators in the Big Ten making $2 million per year.
“He’s done pretty well for himself,” Cignetti said, with a laugh.
It’s a far cry from Cignetti only being able to offer Haines a $7,000 salary to be his defensive line coach at IUP back in 2014.
“It was a part-time salary for a full-time job,” Cignetti said. “He was at a different level than the other guys I had, yet he’s not making anything.”
They’ve maintained an open dialogue ever since Cignetti fended off Lafayette to keep Haines on his IUP staff for another season by combining two part-time salaries to double his pay.
“Everyone has an agent, and agents make money when they place guys in new jobs, they are always trying to move guys and there's opportunities when you do good,” Cignetti said. “He's always up front about what's going on, who is calling, we'll talk about the plusses and minuses.”
At the same time, athletic director Scott Dolson was “scrambling the jets” to make sure IU had the resources in place to keep Haines in the fold.
The athletic department was proactive by locking Cignetti and the entire returning coaching staff to new deals before they even traveled to South Bend, but Dolson didn’t hesitate to revisit those freshly signed contracts.
“We have to adapt to the market conditions as they change,” Dolson told The Herald-Times. “Resources aren't unlimited, but it’s up to us to work together from an administrative standpoint, and put resources in the right places so we can retain a coach who is super important to our program.
“It's an ongoing, day-to-day thing, particularly in the offseason when movement happens quickly and you try to figure out what we need.”
They went through the same process in May when USC pursued IU’s strength and conditioning coach, Derek Owings. Cignetti has long credited Owings, who he describes as a “cutting edge” staffer, for laying the foundation for his program’s success going back to their time together at JMU.
The Hoosiers upped Owings' salary to $925,000 — a $290,000 raise from last season — as part of a new three-year deal.
Cignetti and Dolson underlined the support they received throughout the offseason at the university level. The conversation Whitten had with Haines was an extension of her commitment to building a perennial title contender in football.
“We use the word alignment a lot, and maybe it gets overused, but we are really on the same page,” Dolson said.
It all added up to a historic financial commitment to Cignetti’s coaching staff totaling $8.1 million, a number that’s up from $5.9 million in 2024 and $4.7 million in 2023.
There were only five teams in the Big Ten last year with an assistant salary pool that topped $7 million (Ohio State, Michigan, Oregon, Iowa and Washington), per USA Today’s coaching salary database.
“The financial implications to all these deals are important, but when it's all equal I think people want to go where they can be happy and feel like they are growing,” Dolson said. “I give coach Cig a ton of credit, and that was a part of the hiring process that was impressive to me — he’s had so many people stay with him. The culture he creates and the way he treats people."
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.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Will IU football remain a CFP contender? Curt Cignetti has confidence in his proven formula
Category: General Sports
