Michael Cohen
College Football and College Basketball Writer
SOUTH BEND, Ind. — It was nearly midnight when the door to the visiting media room flew open and in walked Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti, the ripsnorting rabble-rouser whose trophy cabinet is bursting with national honors after guiding the Hoosiers to their best season in school history, a turnaround that will never be forgotten. Hours earlier, before the snow in Notre Dame Stadium had fully melted, Cignetti appeared on the set of “College Gameday” and ignited social media with his latest batch of cocksure comments. Sandwiched between the legendary Nick Saban and former NFL punter Pat McAfee, now a prominent personality at ESPN, Cignetti declared that programs he’s coached “don’t just beat top-25 teams, we beat the s— out of them.” At which point he sat back and crossed his arms while everyone on the dais hollered with delight.
But that wasn’t the same Cignetti who sauntered into a postgame news conference with his metaphorical tail tucked between his legs, a string of puzzlingly conservative decisions in his wake. The scoreboard at Notre Dame Stadium might have showed a modest 27-17 win for Notre Dame, which had entered the weekend as a sizable betting favorite, but nothing about the game itself was close. Cignetti’s team trailed by 24 points with fewer than five minutes remaining after Fighting Irish quarterback Riley Leonard plunged into the end zone for a 1-yard score. Were it not for two touchdowns in the final 90 seconds — long after most Indiana fans had already departed — the optics would have been even worse for a team whose résumé was loudly questioned over the final two months of the regular season.
“The hardest thing on a night like this is saying ‘goodbye’ to your kids,” Cignetti quipped as he positioned himself behind a microphone. “They’re hurting because their old man got his a– kicked.”
And it really was an a– kicking. An Indiana offense that entered the postseason ranked second in the nation in scoring at 43.3 points per game was held to a single field goal for the first 58 minutes and change. Three of the Hoosiers’ first seven meaningful drives gained 2 yards or fewer, including two that went backward. Another ended with a backbreaking interception from quarterback Kurtis Rourke, whose three worst outings of the season in terms of completion percentage came against the three best teams Indiana faced: Michigan (60.7%), Ohio State (44.4%) and Notre Dame (60.6%). The defense, which played with remarkable effort, was undone by scores of missed tackles and one gap issue that sprung tailback Jeremiyah Love for a 98-yard touchdown run to open the scoring. Punter Evan James shanked his first two kicks and got an earful from Cignetti each time he returned to the sideline.
