Curt Cignetti didn’t need long to explain why he said yes to a prominent spot in EA Sports College Football 27.
For the Indiana coach, the appeal was simple: exposure. Big exposure.
Cignetti appears in the game’s intro, where he delivers the familiar line, “EA Sports. It’s in the game,” then gives a wink with the IU fight song playing behind him. He also showed up in a two-minute trailer before the game’s release this summer and landed on the cover of the Deluxe Edition.
That kind of visibility matters, especially after Cignetti has already turned down plenty of endorsements and appearances since winning the national title. The video game, though, offered something different: a chance to reach a massive audience, much of it young and full of potential recruits.
When EA Sports brought the game back in 2025, it drew 6.5 million unique users in just a few months, according to the company at the time. It also remains one of the top-selling games in the country. And unlike the limits that govern how often coaches can speak to high school and transfer targets, there’s no restriction on how often Cignetti can show up in a game those players are already spending time with.
“That’s the reason we agreed to it. We thought it would be really good for the program, our brand, and recruiting because a lot of the guys play that game,” Cignetti told Pat McAfee.
“So it was fun. It turned out well and so I’m glad we did it.
It was good.”
So far, the early reaction has backed up that thinking.
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