Indiana coach Curt Cignetti becomes unstoppable thanks to latest development on recruiting trail
Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti has accomplished pretty much everything you could ever imagine while in Bloomington.
The man has been to the College Football Playoff, won a Big Ten title, captured a national championship and guided the Indiana freaking Hoosiers to an undefeated 16-0 season.
If the plans for a statue haven't already been drawn up, start sharpening those pencils.
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I say "pretty much everything," though, because for all of his otherworldly accomplishments in just two short seasons, there is one, relatively arbitrary thing missing from coach Cig's resume.
I don't want what I'm about to say to seem like an insult, because Lord knows I worship the ground this man walks on, but there's always been a catch with Cignetti's success at Indiana.
He hasn't exactly been able to amass blue-chip talent, at least in the traditional sense, and while it almost adds to his mythos and abilities as a head coach, it has been perplexing not to see more high-level four-stars and five-stars busting down the doors of Cig's office.
That is, until Friday evening, when Indiana landed a commitment from consensus five-star wide receiver Monshun Sales.
Yes, yes, I am well aware of the old standbys of "don't celebrate until the ink is dry" or "we're a long way from signing day," but I doubt a five-star wideout from Indianapolis picked the Hoosiers without being absolutely sure that's where he wants to end up.
Crazier things have certainly happened, but if NIL dollars are all similar between programs, I'd put money on the kid ending up in red and white come December.
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Sales becomes simultaneously Cignetti's first five-star commit as a head coach and the highest rated recruit to pick Indiana in program history.
Not bad for a random Friday in July, but it means something a little more for coach Cig than just adding a talented chess piece to his board.
My point from above comes back into play here: if Curt Cignetti was able to go 16-0 and win a national championship with a bunch of three-stars and Moneyball-esque castoffs, imagine what he can do with top-100 prospects littering his two-deep.
I know it's "just one five-star," but I have no reason to believe Sales will be the only one during Cignetti's tenure, and if that's the case, the rest of the country needs to be on high alert.
Indiana steamrolled their way to a national championship in 2025 while having to beat teams like Ohio State, Alabama, Oregon, and Miami, all programs who dwarf the Hoosiers in terms of blue-chip talent.
Cignetti's squad ranked 72nd in the 247Sports talent composite heading into the 2025 season and were dead-last in the Big Ten in a similar metric, yet they looked unstoppable through much of the year.
It defies all logic, and many were wondering if it was even sustainable, but if Indiana keeps landing recruits like Sales, we may not have to find out the answer to that question.
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The Hoosiers still have plenty of work to do, even in this year's recruiting class, which sits somewhere in the upper 20s to low 30s depending on which site you use, but the journey of a thousand top-ten classes begins with a single first five-star, or whatever Laozi said.
My point is, you can brush this off as a fluke or a hometown discount from Sales, but the same people who doubted Cignetti's coaching acumen would be wise to view this as a harbinger of things to come from Cig on the recruiting trail.
Heed the warning signs, my fellow college football fans. I am once again here to tell you, Cignetti isn't going anywhere.