Indiana’s Curt Cignetti fires shot at SEC during Big Ten Media Days

While the Indiana Hoosiers faced significant criticism for their lackluster out-of-conference schedule last season prior to their run to the college football playoff last season, coach Curt Cignetti says that softening his team’s out-of-conference schedule is simply a strategy that SEC programs have wisely done for quite some time now.

In June, Indiana quietly cancelled a planned home-and-home series against a fellow Power program, the ACC’s Virginia Cavaliers. In place of this cancelled series, Indiana and Cignetti scheduled two home games against non-power 5 schools, hosting Kennesaw State in 2027 and Austin Peay, an FCS program, in 2028.

This is not the only high-profile home-and-home series that Indiana has cancelled as of late in what appears to be a clear attempt at softening the program’s out-of-conference schedule. Originally, Indiana was set to play Louisville this coming season, but cancelled another home-and-home series against the Cardinals to instead play Kennesaw State in 2025.

On Tuesday at Big Ten Media Days, Cignetti was asked by a reporter about his most recent cancelled home-and-home against Virginia, which prompted Cignetti to make light of how a number of SEC programs have similarly scheduled FCS and Group of 5 programs for years now.

“That was a scheduling philosophy that began before I was hired,” said Cignetti. “But I did sign off on it upon being hired before our first season. Look, here is the bottom line. We picked up an extra home game. And we play nine conference games. The two best conferences in college football… Any football guy that is objective will tell you it’s the Big Ten and the SEC. 12 to 16 SEC teams play 3 G-5 games or an FCS game. 12 of those teams play 36 games, 29 G-5 games, and one less conference game. So, we figure we’d just adopt SEC scheduling philosophy. Some people don’t like it. I’m more focused on those nine conference games.”

Indiana HC Curt Cignetti on canceling a home-and-home series with Virginia and adding an FCS opponent:

“We figure we’d just adopt SEC scheduling philosophy.” pic.twitter.com/czoeezegFL

— The Next Round (@NextRoundLive) July 22, 2025

While some obviously see this as an unnecessary dig at the SEC, it is, in fairness, quite accurate. SEC programs have largely seen out-of-conference games as a tune-up for the only thing that matters for the most part in respect to a program’s chances of making it to the CFP, which is conference matchups.

Critics of Cignetti’s out-of-conference strategy would cite the fact that Indiana was clearly outmatched in its lone CFP game against Notre Dame as a reason for teams to test themselves against Power 5 competition in non-conference games.

But given the fact that Indiana did earn a CFP spot at all last season after playing no Power 5 teams in non-conference games, it’s hard to argue with Cignetti’s strategy.