Curt Cignetti’s Blueprint: How Indiana Football Went from Afterthought to National Championship Contender
Curt Cignetti’s rise through the college football ranks has been anything but conventional-but it’s been undeniably effective. From the comforts of Nick Saban’s staff to the grind of Division II at Indiana University of Pennsylvania (where his father once coached), to Elon, James Madison, and now Indiana, Cignetti has built a career on winning-and doing it his way.
He once summed it up with trademark bluntness: “It’s pretty simple. I win. Google me.”
Now, that confidence has translated into something Indiana football hasn’t seen in a long time-relevance on the national stage. In just two seasons, Cignetti has transformed a program long known for basketball into a legitimate football powerhouse, one win away from rewriting history.
The JMU Pipeline: Building from the Ground Up
To understand Indiana’s rise, you have to go back to Harrisonburg, Virginia. At James Madison, Cignetti didn’t just maintain a strong program-he elevated it.
In his first season, the Dukes reached the FCS National Championship. The next two years brought semifinal appearances.
Then came the jump to FBS, and Cignetti didn’t flinch: eight wins in year one, eleven the next, and a bowl victory to cap it off.
When he made the move to Bloomington in 2024, he brought more than a résumé-he brought players. Thirteen of them, to be exact, followed him from JMU. And in 2025, four of those transfers became the defensive backbone of Indiana’s title run: linebacker Aiden Fisher, cornerback D’Angelo Ponds, and defensive linemen Mikail Kamara and Tyrique Tucker.
In a college football landscape increasingly defined by the transfer portal and an arms race for blue-chip recruits, Indiana has zagged while everyone else zigs. Miami, their opponent in the National Championship, boasts 52 four- and five-star players.
Indiana? Just seven.
But the Hoosiers have leaned into production over pedigree-and it’s working.
Of course, talent still matters. Indiana has it in spades at the most important position.
Quarterback Fernando Mendoza, the 2025 Heisman Trophy winner, is the projected No. 1 pick in the 2026 NFL Draft. But what sets Indiana apart isn’t just star power.
It’s identity. It’s culture.
And a big part of that is rooted in defense.
Defensive DNA: A Tale of Two Coordinators, One Origin
There’s a fascinating symmetry to this year’s title matchup. Both Indiana and Miami run defenses that trace their roots back to Cignetti’s early days at James Madison. In fact, both defensive coordinators-Indiana’s Bryant Haines and Miami’s Corey Hetherman-came up under Cignetti and cut their teeth in the same system.
Hetherman joined Cignetti’s first JMU staff in 2019 after a stint as DC at Maine. At the time, Cignetti was looking outside his Elon staff for a defensive mind to lead the Dukes.
Haines, who had been Tony Trisciani’s right-hand man at Elon (Trisciani was Cignetti’s DC there), was in line for the DC job at Elon once Cignetti left. But Cignetti didn’t want to lose Haines entirely-so he offered him a co-coordinator role at JMU, with Hetherman calling the plays.
That partnership laid the foundation for what both Indiana and Miami are doing now. Hetherman eventually moved on-first to Rutgers under Greg Schiano, then to Minnesota, where he impressed enough to land the DC job at Miami. Haines, meanwhile, stayed in the system, evolving it in his own way.
As Cignetti recently told the Bloomington Herald-Times, “We didn’t do a lot with Corey. [Haines] did a lot of it, but he was the 'co,' and Corey was the guy.”
Now, those two branches of the same coaching tree are squaring off for a national title.
Schemes That Squeeze You
If you’re looking for exotic blitzes or chaotic pre-snap movement, you won’t find much of that here. Both defenses are built on the same principle: eliminate space, limit mistakes, and make offenses suffocate under the weight of precision.
Think boa constrictors, not cheetahs.
They both rely heavily on Cover 3 and are fanatical about fundamentals. But within those similar shells, there are key differences-especially in how they apply pressure.
Coverage Philosophy:
- Miami leans more on man coverage, trusting its athletes to win one-on-one.
- Indiana prefers Tampa coverage, a zone-heavy look that gives them more eyes on the ball and helps eliminate big plays.
Pressure Packages:
- Miami brings heat with five-man pressures and leads the country in Slot Blitz Rate, sending their nickel defender on 31.5% of snaps.
- Indiana is more surgical. They love simulated pressures-also known as “creepers”-where they bring four but disguise who’s coming.
Only Florida ran more of these in 2025.
Movement and Disguise:
- Miami relies on brute strength, especially from their edge rushers.
They don’t stunt much and rarely try to confuse you.
- Indiana thrives on movement.
They’ll twist, stunt, and disguise to keep offenses guessing.
Blitz Design:
- Miami will bring their nickel with regularity.
- Indiana uses field-side pressure more sparingly, often as a counterpunch-especially on third downs.
Both defenses are aggressive, ranking in the top 15 nationally in blitz rate (Indiana 10th, Miami 14th). But they go about it in very different ways.
Indiana’s pressures feel like jabs-timed, deliberate, and meant to keep you off balance. Miami’s are more like haymakers-frequent and forceful, trying to overwhelm you with talent.
Coming Full Circle
As Indiana and Miami prepare to face off in the National Championship, it’s fitting that the defensive gameplans will be shaped by two coaches who once shared a headset under Curt Cignetti. The schemes may have evolved, the players may be different, but the DNA remains the same.
This isn’t just a battle of talent or recruiting stars. It’s a chess match between two programs that have built their identities from the same blueprint. And at the center of it all is a coach who said, “I win,” and then went out and proved it-one stop, one scheme, one season at a time.