IU’s Curt Cignetti named Home Depot Coach of the Year

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — In a season of history-making moments for Indiana University football, head coach Curt Cignetti now holds the title of Home Depot Coach of the Year.

Cignetti received the award during Thursday night’s College Football Awards show on ESPN. He is also a finalist for Eddie Robinson National Coach of the Year Award and is on the Paul “Bear” Bryant Coach of the Year Award watch list.

According to IU Athletics, Cignetti is the fourth Indiana head coach to win a national coach of the year award and is responsible for one of the biggest turnarounds of a program in college football history.

Cignetti joins the likes of Bo McMillin (1945; AFCA), John Pont (1967; AFCA, FWAA, The Sporting News, Walter Camp Foundation) and Tom Allen (2020; AFCA) to win national coach of the year.

Earlier this month, Cignetti was named the Hayes-Schembechler Big Ten Coach of the Year and the Dave McClain Coach of the Year from the media that covers the Big Ten.

In a release, IU Athletics said:

“Cignetti has engineered an eight-game improvement from Indiana’s 2023 to 2024 seasons. That number currently sits tied for the second-best improvement by a first-year head coach since at least 1996. He was the first-ever Division I head coach to start 8-0 or better in consecutive seasons at different institutions. He led James Madison to a 10-0 mark to start the 2023 season and pushed Indiana to an identical mark to begin the 2024 slate,”

Indiana’s 11 victories in 2024 are the most in IU Football history and mark the first double-digit win season for the Hoosiers.

The Hoosiers will play in their first College Football Playoff as the bracket expands to 12 teams for the first time in the CFP’s history. After a nearly perfect 11-1 season, IU will travel to South Bend to face Notre Dame for the first round of the playoffs on Friday, Dec. 20.