“Made a Complete Fool Out of Himself”: Paul Finebaum Rips Curt Cignetti for Taking Shots at SEC originally appeared on Athlon Sports.
Paul Finebaum isn’t holding back when it comes to Curt Cignetti’s comments about SEC scheduling. The longtime voice of SEC football responded to the Indiana head coach’s remarks at Big Ten Media Days with brutal clarity during a guest appearance on “McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning.”
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“He made a complete fool out of himself trying to draw parallels,” Finebaum said. “So did other coaches… If you’re going to go after the SEC, there are places you can attack. But don’t try to attack on the strength of schedule and don’t try to attack on the non-conference games because we all know Michigan two years ago played one of the most embarrassing non-conference schedules in the history of the game.”
Cignetti sparked controversy when he defended Indiana’s cancelation of non-conference matchups against Virginia, UConn, and Louisville by framing it as adopting the SEC’s scheduling model.
“We figured we would just adopt SEC scheduling philosophy,” Cignetti said, pointing to the SEC’s trend of scheduling three Group of Five or FCS teams and playing just eight conference games.
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Finebaum wasn’t buying the comparison. The SEC, he argued, is built differently, with top-tier depth and legitimate playoff credentials. Cignetti, on the other hand, is leading a program that hadn’t had a winning season since 2019 before last season and is trying to justify softening Indiana’s schedule heading into a grueling Big Ten slate.
Cignetti floated broader structural ideas for the College Football Playoff, including a “four-four” automatic qualifier system that would guarantee four bids each for the Big Ten and SEC. He proposed conference play-ins for lower seeds and emphasized the need for standardizing conference schedules. Yet, it was his dig at the SEC’s scheduling that drew Finebaum’s ire.
Indiana’s strategy, while perhaps pragmatic in the new playoff landscape, exposes a contradiction between Cignetti’s public stance on strong schedules and his team’s actual approach. Finebaum made it clear that if Cignetti wants to challenge the SEC, he better bring more than selective math and half-baked comparisons.
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This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jul 28, 2025, where it first appeared.
