CNN
By Dana O’Neil, CNN
Miami Gardens (CNN) — A piece of red confetti clung to Curt Cignetti’s neck as he shared the secret sauce of his Indiana football team’s success: Good people, hard work, attention to detail, and a processed approach.
Indiana kept its circle tight and held its belief tighter, stiff-arming infiltrators and doubters with equal authority.
It is, of course, easier to do when no one necessarily wants to break in. For two glorious years, Cignetti built Indiana exactly as he wanted to, systematically identifying the players he wanted to coach. He went for them, in large part, because so few came to him.
But somewhere between Fernando Mendoza’s heroic touchdown and Jamari Sharpe’s national championship-sealing pick, everything changed at Indiana, even if no one realized it.
“Once you climb the mountain, you become the mountain,’’ former Alabama coach Nick Saban and Cignetti mentor told CNN Sports before the game.
“People come around because they want to be a part of it. They’re not coming to climb. It won’t sustain itself. Success is not a continuum. It’s momentary and as soon as you think anything you’ve done in the past will impact your success, you’re infected with success. That’s the challenge of being a successful program.’’
It catches even the best off guard. College sports are pockmarked with teams that flew like Icarus, only to crash upon getting too close to the sunlight.
Much like Cignetti, Jay Wright built Villanova basketball on the backbone of players he sought, not the ones who sought him. He painstakingly selected players who suited him and built the Wildcats with intention. By 2009, the payoff came with a Final Four berth. Suddenly, everyone wanted to be a Wildcat.
Two years later, Villanova lost eight of its final 10 games, and in the 2011-12 season, backtracked all the way to a 13-19 finish.
Towards the end of that year, Wright hopped in a car with his longtime assistant Billy Lange for a drive down Interstate 95 and a recruiting visit. The two talked honestly about what had happened, agreeing that they as coaches had lost their way. Their success meant they had the pick of the litter among recruits, and Wright stopped choosing what he wanted, opting instead for players he thought he was supposed to take.
He made an intentional return to his roots, always underscoring that he wasn’t avoiding talented players; he just wanted to make sure even the best shared his values. Villanova went on to win two national championships in the span of three years, and Wright joined the Hall of Fame.
That will be Cignetti’s challenge now, a challenge made all the more difficult with the advent of NIL and the transfer portal. Other programs will flash cash at Cignetti’s players and staff, and other players suddenly will want in at Indiana.
It’s already happening.
Clean-up crews had barely finished clearing the Hard Rock Stadium field before the door started spinning. Strength coach Derek Owings is leaving for Tennessee and, hours after his extended family gathered in an emotional celebration, Alberto Mendoza was in the portal. The projected No. 1 NFL draft pick’s little brother was instrumental in bringing Fernando to Indiana, and smiled through the confetti on Monday night, talking in wonder about the wild ride his family has been on.
But as the Hoosiers marched toward the championship, Cignetti went out and snagged quarterback Josh Hoover from TCU, essentially recruiting over his Heisman Trophy winner’s little brother. Alberto Mendoza had insisted on Saturday he would stick around and fight for his shot at being a starter.
On Monday he was looking elsewhere.
“I’ll be dealing with underclassmen going to the NFL tomorrow and who knows what else,’’ Cignetti said on the postgame dais.
The ironic twist is that the very thing that has allowed the Hoosiers to reach the summit is now the very thing they now have to protect against. In normal times, Cignetti could not have built a championship-caliber roster so quickly. Rebuilds usually take time, requiring one recruiting class to beget the next and age to work its magic on teenagers who become stars.
Instead, Cignetti brought 13 players from James Madison with him, allowing an instant culture injection into how the coach wanted to do things. It is one thing to talk about being process driven; it is another altogether to get people who understood what the process is. His JMU transfers did and allowed Cignetti to set a foundation that otherwise might have taken years.
The Hoosiers median age this season was 22.5, an incredible acceleration in two years’ time.
Given an established base, Cignetti was able to sprinkle in transfer players selectively. He found players similar to himself, ones who didn’t get a crack at the big time right away and had something to prove. Fernando Mendoza started at Cal and Elijah Sarratt at Saint Francis. Both talented, they also understood that they were walking into a program that, as Saban put it, was climbing.
But now Indiana is at the top. Both a national championship trophy and a Heisman will take up residence in Bloomington. Cignetti insists his NIL budget isn’t nearly as deep as people think, but that’s a hard sell when Mark Cuban winks at doubling down on his investment.
If anyone seems hard wired to protect against a bougie infection, it is Cignetti. His championship dream was to retire to his ancient recliner and crack a cold one. While his players smiled in dazed amusement, he was talking about getting back in the office to watch film.
But he has never had this before. For a chronic underdog who spent all of his 64 years climbing, this is his first view from the summit.
He already has done the impossibly improbable at Indiana but what comes next might be even harder.
“When I give speeches and talk about teamwork, I always say that there’s no ‘I’ in team but there is one in ‘win,’’’ Saban said. “Individuals make a team what it is, but when you become the mountain, everyone wants a piece of you. And you better be ready for it.’’
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