Curt Cignetti and Indiana are all that's wrong with college football

As a disclaimer, I will own that I am taking Friday night’s game in South Bend personally. How can I not? I’m originally from Indiana. And anyone that has spent any time there knows that the college sports landscape is a funny funny thing. You have your major programs, the Purdues and Indianas to be specific, and then your lovable MAC mid-major in Ball State. Don’t let anyone fool you, Butler and Indiana State don’t matter. But there’s that school in South Bend. The school that everyone, and I mean everyone, has an opinion on. It’s like Stone Cold versus the Rock back at Wrestlemania 17. Your mom, your dad, your priest, your grandma all had an opinion. It’s like that.

People will paint a narrative. I already hear it. It’s Notre Dame versus the world. The blue blood program versus this upstart new comer from down the road in Bloomington. They’ll paint it as a have versus have not that will somehow give hope to the rest of the football universe that they too can dream of making the playoffs. Like some Hoosiers (the movie) vibe where Cignetti’s boys don’t get caught watching the paint dry and run the picket fence to Jimmy Chitwood to beat the big bad Golden Domers. If we actually want to take that movie as fact for this there is one thing you can’t ignore: both Gene Hackman’s Norman Dale and Curt Cignetti are innately and infinitely punchable and it is so satisfying to see them get a tiny little dose of their own medicine.

I get the draw for Cignetti. He’s cocky. He’s brash. He gives Indiana a sense of importance that they haven’t had as a general athletic department since another larger than life in the ego department coach roamed the sidelines in Bloomington. I guess the more things change the more they stay the same. Someone at least keep Curt away from the students that don’t address him as “Coach Cignetti, sir” lest we have another zero tolerance policy and a student rally to save a total and complete horse’s ass’s job. But I digress. Cignetti isn’t Bobby Knight. But he’s close. At least Knight had the wins to carry himself the way he did. Be the player (or coach) you can afford to be indeed. Cignetti is the new kid on the block that thinks he can climb in the ring with Ali because he sucker punched someone in the parking lot at the Hip Hugger in Kokomo.

But aside from their “I win. Google me.” head coach, the Hoosiers aren’t some out of nowhere team that upset titan after titan and earned their spot in the playoff. No, their story is a little less wholesome and pure. They rode a weak ass schedule in a weak ass conference to a one-loss record and smiled all the way to the playoffs. I don’t hate them for it, I guess I applaud them. But I don’t want to hear a peep from anyone about a soft SEC non-conference schedule ever again. Alabama? Better than IU. Ole Miss? Better than IU. South Carolina? Probably better than IU. Vandy? Push. Sure, the SEC may play Middle Tennesee and Chattanooga, but at least they are week in and week out Top 5 matchups in conference. Indiana got the likes of Purdue and Northwestern, but at least Washington had a winning record I guess. Congrats. Indiana would go 5-7 in the SEC. At best. Hell, the one Big Ten team that actually matters and has some level of comparable SEC talent in Ohio State beat them by 23. And if the Buckeyes had an even halfway decent coach, they probably would have won by 60. Yes, that’s a backhanded shot at Ryan Day, speaking of coaches that probably don’t deserve to act the way they do. But that’s next week’s column.

At the end of the day you’ll hear the talking heads or your drunk neighbor champion the Hoosiers as the savior of parity and the sport. That’s a dumb argument and your neighbor is asking for you to steal their packages. If Gordon Gecko was a college fooball fan he’d tell you the same. The point is, ladies and gentleman, that rooting for good, rooting for Notre Dame, rooting to stop the out of control undeserved sense of entitlement from Bloomington — for lack of a better word — is good. Rooting for Notre Dame is right. Rooting for Notre Dame works. Rooting for Notre Dame clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the football spirit. The Irish, in all of its traditions — Touchdown Jesus, the mums, Rockne, Rudy — has marked the upward surge of football. And Notre Dame stomping out that ignorant loudmouth from Bloomington — you mark my words — will not only save the playoffs, but that other malfunctioning entity called college football.

Now, having said all that, Cignetti and the Hoosiers may very well go into Notre Dame stadium on Friday and beat the Irish. I mean, let’s not act like ND doesn’t have a history of messing themselves in major national games. And all eyes, even the casual fans and borderline apathetic non-sports fans will likely at least check in on this game from time to time. That usually results in Notre Dame laying an egg. But God help us if they do. You thought Irish fans were bad? You’ve seen nothing yet. A Hoosier win gives momentum and moxie to their ilk and I warn you they are unbearable. HEED MY WARNING... UNBEARABLE I TELL YOU. For your sake, for my sake, for our sake, for the world, pray that Notre Dame puts an end to all this silliness and sends the Hoosiers back to the second-tier no-place-having-gutter from whence they came with their weak record, no rigor, and stupid rock. It’s good for football. It’s good for everything. Root for Indiana? Nah. I have too much respect for the game. And myself.