The staircase of success that governs the college football landscape is meant to be scaled with patience. One hundred thirty-eight Division 1-A programs scamper toward the top each season, with only a handful in true contention to reach the ultimate step after years of gradual improvement.
However, Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti came to Bloomington, and almost immediately upon arrival began to bound across multiple steps at a time. He overcame every obstacle in his path by instating systems and ensuring that everyone in the building trusted and invested in the process. So much so, that former Indiana linebacker Aiden Fisher felt as if he and his teammates were robots.
That process worked wonders for Indiana’s constant quest for continual improvement, as the Hoosiers traversed every step of the staircase of success en route to a 16-0 season and a national championship. Now, though, it seems that Cignetti and the Hoosiers have reached a new obstacle unlike all that came before. A ceiling.
Apart from scoring triple digits in every game or shutting out every opponent, there is no next step of excellence beyond a 16-0 national championship season. A process through which a team systematically ascends to the next extent of success comes to halt when there is no previously unconquered territory to discover.
How could this program possibly follow up such a historic, unsurpassable season?
“We’re building a house from the ground up again…” Cignetti said after the first spring practice on March 26. “We’ve got to have that edge and be humble and hungry.”
Over the course of last season, Indiana built a glorious, nearly unassailable house. This year, the Hoosiers pick up their belongings and move out, beginning construction on a new one in the next neighborhood over.
Much of the core of the roster has been decimated by graduation and the NFL draft. There are freshmen and incoming transfers who are poised to make a substantial impact, but must first acclimate to the environment at Indiana. For that reason, the winning culture in Bloomington must be reinstated as much as it must be protected.
“The young guys are 17, 18 and have gone to college for the first time in January,” Cignetti said, “and they don’t know they don’t know.”
Even the returners, according to Cignetti, require a reacclimation period.
“We’ve got some returners that forgot what they knew,” Cignetti said.
No matter how spectacular or picturesque the architecture of Indiana’s house from a year ago may be, its construction of the next one does not benefit from any tangible head start. As a matter of fact, Indiana could be considered behind, because its offseason began more than a month after the majority of its adversaries returned to their drawing boards.
Although hoisting the trophy in Miami didn’t automatically provide Cignetti with an already half-built house for the next season, he benefits from his possession of the blueprint for the glorious, nearly unassailable national championship house that the rest of the country fights to figure out the fundamentals of.
While his opponents lay the foundation for their houses and double check that no bricks lay crooked, Cignetti leans back in his chair and contemplates his options for refining the finishing touches of his. Taking note of the slightly scratched corner of the garage door of his previous property, or remembering to replace the lamp in the guest bedroom that doesn’t quite fit to his liking.
“You can't really improve on 16-0… because there were 16 games and you won every one of them,” Cignetti said. “What you can improve on is your day-to-day consistency and the tools in your toolkit and the things you do to help guys become the best they can be, because even when you win games, there's a lot of plays you'd love to have back.”
Cignetti possesses the blueprint, and therefore the understanding of the vision of what must take place in order for a team to succeed at the highest level. Additionally, he holds the tools to turn that vision into a replicated reality after restocking the talent of his roster through the transfer portal. As Fernando Mendoza and Elijah Sarratt vacate their roles on the offense, for example, blue-chip transfers Josh Hoover and Nick Marsh arrive in replacement.
Perhaps the house that represents Indiana’s upcoming season is set to be constructed in accordance with a familiar blueprint, but by a different selection of tools. The blueprint is certainly capable of orchestrating the construction of one of the most extraordinary houses of the year, but time will tell whether or not the toolkit can match that potential.
This spring, summer and fall is not about Cignetti adding to the national championship house that has already been built. It’s not about demolishing that house and starting over, either.
Instead, it’s about him looking back on the undefeated season from the next neighborhood over with both a smile and the relentless intent to match or exceed its magnificence, blueprint and toolkit in hand.
