Indiana Hoosiers head coach Curt Cignetti made his feelings about the top football programs clear during ESPN’s “College GameDay” on Friday before his team took the field against Notre Dame.
“We don’t just beat top-25 teams, we beat the s–t out of them,” he told the panel in South Bend, Indiana before the first game of the revamped College Football Playoff.
Cignetti’s trash talk sparked laughter from the rest of the group, including Nick Saban, who brought in the Hoosier coach as a wide receivers coach and recruiting coordinator during his first season at the University of Alabama in 2007.
Cignetti mentioned how he learned a lot from Saban during the four seasons he served under him, but the former Crimson Tide coach made clear that not everything the brash coach does is similar to Saban.
“One thing you didn’t learn from me is talking all of the s–t you talk,” Saban responded.
Cignetti’s brash words haven’t always sat well with opposing teams, with Ohio State — which is ranked in the top 25 — trolling the IU coach after a November game, which accounted for the Hoosiers’ lone loss of the season.
But Cignetti has had a strong reputation during his college coaching career, and during his time at Alabama from 2007-10, Cignetti developed future NFL players like Julio Jones and Mark Ingram II.
Cignetti ultimately left Alabama after getting hired to his first head coaching position at Division II Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
Following a five-year stretch at IUP, where he went 53-17, Cignetti took his first DI job at Elon University, taking them to the FCS playoffs in his first season in 2017.
After four years at James Madison, Cignetti accepted the Hoosiers job in November 2023 to succeed Tom Allen.
He led the team to a record 10-0 start to the 2024 season, finishing the year with an 11-1 record.
Last month, Indiana extended Cignetti’s contract with a new eight-year deal with an annual salary of $8 million.
Indiana faces the Fighting Irish in the first round of the CFP on Friday, where the two face off for the first time since 1991.