Curt Cignetti is the best quote machine in college football these days. The Indiana Hoosiers head coach opens his mouth and pure gold comes out. That gold isn't always 100 percent factual, though.
At Big Ten Media Days, Cignetti dropped the line of the day by explaining Indiana's decision to cancel a 2027-2028 home-and-home series with Virginia: "We figured we’d just adopt SEC scheduling philosophy."
IU football coach Curt Cignetti has taken a lot of heat for the Hoosiers weak non-conference school. Cignetti with his “wonderful” personality says he’s just following the SEC way of scheduling pic.twitter.com/Ije5HuAjEq
— Rick Semmler (@RickSemmler) July 22, 2025
Cignetti came prepared with numbers too.
"Twelve of the 16 SEC teams play three G5 or an FCS game," he said. "Twelve of those teams play 36 games — 29 G5 games and seven FCS games, and one less conference game."
He's right about the conference games. The SEC's eight-game conference schedule gives them a clear leg up in terms of scheduling flexibility. But that's not the issue here. The question for Indiana is its own out of conference scheduling, which looks as light as it could possibly be:
- 2025: Old Dominion, Kennesaw State, Indiana State (FCS)
- 2026: Colorado State, Western Kentucky
- 2027: Kennesaw State, Indiana State (FCS), UMass
- 2028: Austin Peay (FCS), Eastern Michigan
- 2029: Ball State, Eastern Illinois (FCS), Western Kentucky
It's all well and good for Cignetti to justify that schedule by pointing to the Big Ten's nine conference games. Though it's rich to hide behind that when said conference schedule includes just three teams ranked in the top half of the Big Ten per FPI. The Hoosiers play Penn State, Oregon and Wisconsin but miss Ohio State, Michigan, USC, Nebraska and Washington.
Curt Cignetti's understanding of SEC scheduling philosophy is stuck in 2008
The dig at SEC scheduling is where he gets it wrong. Because it's not 2008 with LSU playing FCS Appalachian State, North Texas, Tulane and Troy in the non-conference. One look at the current scheduling meta in the SEC will tell you home-and-homes with Power 5 opponents is the norm. And not just Power 5 doormats. We're talking marquee games against contenders.
In 2025, Alabama is playing Florida State, Texas is facing Ohio State, LSU will take on Clemson, Texas A&M will battle Notre Dame, Florida gets Miami. Each one of those games is on the road, too.
Indiana isn't some run-of-the-mill Big Ten program anymore. At least, they hope they aren't. Cignetti is looking to build on a surprise College Football Playoff run in 2024. He's looking to fit in amongst the big dogs. Well, the big dogs by and large are playing at least one big-time P5 opponent each year.
The issue with Indiana isn't that they'll play Kennesaw State in 2027 or Austin Peay in 2028. It's that they won't play Virginia.
In the era of the 12-team (or 16-team) playoff, maybe we'll see SEC programs swing back to lighter non-con schedules. Until then, it's time to update our collective knowledge base around schedules. The cupcake SEC out-of-conference schedule jokes may be funny, but they're dated.