Indiana football’s Curt Cignetti has always been a winner as a head coach, but the wider college football world only took notice once he started doing it in Bloomington.
His 27-2 record through two seasons with the Hoosiers defies the program’s history. He more postseason games in one season as Indiana had across its previous 100+ years of existence, winning its first national championship in the process.
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For this, Cignetti ranks in as ESPN’s No. 1 coach in college football entering the 2026 season, his third in Bloomington. He ranks in ahead of Georgia’s Kirby Smart at No. 2, Ohio State’s Ryan Day at No. 3, Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman at No. 4 and Oregon’s Dan Lanning at No. 5.
Cignetti was at No. 1 in five of ten ballots from ESPN’s panel of reporters after entering the 2025 unranked in the list of ten coaches. He enters 2026 looking to follow up on the most improbable two-year turnaround the sport has ever seen.
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