Indiana finished the season unbeaten, capturing a 13-0 record, the Big Ten title, and a No. 1 spot in the AP poll, all while coach Curt Cignetti was named the Associated Press College Football Coach of the Year for a second straight year.
Cignetti’s back-to-back honor makes him the first coach to win the award consecutively since its inception in 1998. He is only the fourth coach ever to win twice, joining Brian Kelly, Gary Patterson and Nick Saban.
The 64-year-old Cignetti is 24-2 overall, steering the Hoosiers to unprecedented heights in just his second season after leaving James Madison of the Championship Subdivision to take over a program that had long been the losingest in major college football.
Last season the Hoosiers won their first ten games, reached a peak ranking of No. 5 in the AP Top 25, and earned a berth in the first round of the College Football Playoff.
This year the team repeated the trend of excellence, finishing 13-0, earning its first Big Ten championship since 1967, topping the AP poll for the first time, and securing the top seed in the College Football Playoff.
Cignetti also guided Indiana’s first Heisman Trophy winner, quarterback Fernando Mendoza, who was named the AP player of the year.
In the national voting panel of 52 media members who cover college football, Cignetti received 47 first-place votes. Texas Tech’s Joey McGuire and Vanderbilt’s Clark Lea each received two first-place votes, while Virginia’s Tony Elliott received one.
In 2022 the Hoosiers became the first Bowl Subdivision program to reach 700 all-time losses. They entered the season with 714 losses, a figure that still stands, and have since been surpassed by Northwestern, which now has 717.
In a program that had never won more than nine games in a season before Cignetti’s arrival, the Hoosiers have posted double-digit wins for a second straight year and completed a regular season without a loss for the first time.
Cignetti had said before last week that his program was chasing Ohio State in recruiting and on the field. The 13-10 win over the Buckeyes in the Big Ten championship game marked another milestone.
“It’s another step we need to take as a program,” he said after the game. “It’s a great win, obviously. And we’re going to go in the playoffs as the No. 1 seed. And a lot of people probably thought that wasn’t possible. But when you get the right people and you have a plan and they love one another and play for one another and they commit, anything’s possible.”
The Hoosiers’ historic season, under Cignetti’s leadership, has redefined the program’s trajectory and cemented Indiana’s place among college football’s elite.
