Urban Meyer and Curt Cignetti Credit: © Robert Goddin-Imagn Images / Fox Sports
By Sam Neumann on

Urban Meyer watched Indiana beat Ohio State 13-10 in the Big Ten Championship Game on Saturday night, and the former Buckeyes coach had a take that’s going to follow Curt Cignetti around for a while.

“This is the greatest turnaround in the history of our sport, college football,” Meyer said. “It’s not even close. You know what? A year ago, I was at Indiana versus I believe it was Nebraska, and I was watching that, and I wanted to go outside and stand next to that team and witness what I was witnessing. That’s last year. This is this year. This is the best coaching job I’ve seen, certainly in my life, I think in the history of the sport.”

Meyer isn’t prone to hyperbole when it comes to football, and given his résumé — three national championships, stops at Florida and Ohio State, and an .853 career winning percentage — he’s seen plenty of great coaching. But what Curt Cignetti has done at Indiana in less than two years is legitimately absurd.

The Hoosiers went 3-9 in 2023 and had the most all-time losses of any program in college football history. Now they’re 13-0, Big Ten champions, and headed to the College Football Playoff as the top overall seed. They hadn’t won an outright conference title since 1945. They’d also lost 30 straight to Ohio State.

That changed on Saturday night in Indianapolis against the defending national champions.

Cignetti is now 24-2 in two seasons at Indiana and 18-1 in Big Ten play. He brought 13 players with him from James Madison, added 27 more transfers, and completely rebuilt a roster that had no business competing for championships. Indiana wasn’t supposed to be here. The portal and NIL have changed college football, but what Cignetti has done in Bloomington is still beyond what anyone thought possible.

Meyer called it the best coaching job he’s ever seen, and when you consider the alternatives — the other turnarounds in college football history — it’s tough to argue. And if you want to argue, just Google Cignetti.

About Sam Neumann

Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.

View all posts by Sam Neumann