Curt Cignetti is sitting alone at the top of the Big Ten coaching mountain.
USA Today released its Big Ten head coach rankings Monday ahead of the 2026 season, and Indiana’s Cignetti came in at No. 1, finishing ahead of Ohio State’s Ryan Day and Oregon’s Dan Lanning.
The ranking fits the run Cignetti has put together in Bloomington. In two seasons, he is 27-2 overall and 17-1 in Big Ten play, a stretch that looks nothing like Indiana’s history before 2024. USA Today’s Paul Myerberg called Cignetti “the top dog in the conference” and said he is “the closest thing college coaching in general has to a Nick Saban-like figure.”
Indiana’s 2025 season was the kind of year that changes the conversation around a program. The Hoosiers became the first college football team to win 16 games in a single season since Yale in 1894. They won their first Big Ten Championship since 1967, took home the Rose Bowl and Peach Bowl for the first time in program history, and beat Miami 27-21 to win the program’s first national title under Cignetti.
That success has pushed Cignetti into the center of the sport. CBS Sports also named him the No. 1 coach in college football, and he jumped from No. 24 in the 2025 offseason to No. 1 this offseason.
Tom Fornelli wrote, “Google him, and you'll now see "CBSSports.com's No. 1 coach" come up in the results,” and added, “Well, assuming Google still even shows search results anymore, anyway. Curt Cignetti has taken college football by storm.
He's done the seemingly impossible by turning Indiana into a national champion in only two seasons. It's not simply that he did it, either, but how he did it.”
CBS ranked Cignetti ahead of Georgia’s Kirby Smart, Ohio State’s Ryan Day, Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman and Oregon’s Dan Lanning. Fornelli also noted that Cignetti is the first coach in the 11-year CBS Sports coach power rankings to rise from outside the top 20 to No. 1 in one season.
“Cignetti and the Hoosiers overcame every obstacle in their path, often obliterating it beyond recognition and did something nobody could've dreamed of only three seasons ago,” Fornelli wrote. “If he can do that, how can any of us be surprised to see him No. 1 here too?”
The awards tour has kept rolling through the spring and summer. Cignetti served as the honorary pace car driver for the 110th running of the Indianapolis 500, landed on the cover of EA Sports College Football 27 Deluxe Edition and was named to TIME Magazine’s 100 most influential sports figures.
TIME included him in its inaugural TIME100 class in the “Titan” category, alongside Wembanyama, Judge, Ronaldo, Rory McIlroy, Erlin Haaland, Mike Tirico and others.
Sean Gregory wrote, “Two words will forever be associated with Curt Cignetti, who led Indiana to its first national football championship in January: "Google me,"” referring to what Cignetti said at the national-signing-day press conference in 2023 when asked how he would sell his vision to recruits and transfer portal players.
Gregory also pointed to Cignetti’s track record at smaller schools, especially James Madison, where he went 41-8 over four seasons and reached the AP Top 25 in 2022 and 2023.
He closed by noting Indiana’s football turnaround and the role of Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza under center. Indiana finished the 2025 season 16-0, and after the Hoosiers beat Miami 27-21 in the title game, Google added an Easter egg to search results for Cignetti: “Yup, he won.”
USA Today’s full Big Ten coach rankings were:
Curt Cignetti (Indiana)
Ryan Day (Ohio State)
Dan Lanning (Oregon)
Kirk Ferentz (Iowa)
Kyle Whittingham (Michigan)
Lincoln Riley (USC)
Bret Bielema (Illinois)
Matt Campbell (Penn State)
Matt Rhule (Nebraska)
P.J. Fleck (Minnesota)
Pat Fitzgerald (Michigan State)
Jedd Fisch (Washington)
Luke Fickell (Wisconsin)
Greg Schiano (Rutgers)
Barry Odom (Purdue)
Mike Locksley (Maryland)
David Braun (Northwestern)
Bob Chesney (UCLA)
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