SEC fans troll Curt Cignetti after Indiana's awful CFP start: Best memes, tweets

It's no secret at this point that Curt Cignetti is a man unafraid to talk a little trash. Whether pronouncing that his new team's biggest rival "sucks" immediately after taking the job, telling everyone to Google his resume or dunking all over a defeated opponent, he'll never miss an opportunity to tell you just how confident he is. That's worked wonders for a Cinderella Indiana team in 2024, which has adopted its new coach's identity en route to an 11-1 record and a College Football Playoff berth. It's also put a big, big bullseye on the Hoosiers' back.

Despite Indiana's lofty record, there were plenty of critics around the country who argued that the Hoosiers were a paper tiger, fattening up on a laughably easy schedule and ultimately unworthy of a playoff spot. Most of those critics just happened to reside in the South, where three-loss teams like Ole Miss, Alabama and South Carolina found themselves on the outside of the CFP looking in despite playing a far harder slate of games.

All of which is to say that, while Indiana has been among the best stories of the college football season, there were plenty of people who couldn't wait to see them fail as they took on Notre Dame in the first round on Friday night. And when the Hoosiers got off to as poor a start as they possibly could, they really couldn't wait to give Cignetti a taste of his own medicine.

SEC fans pounce on Curt Cignetti after Indiana's brutal start against Notre Dame

Indiana needed a hot start to silence the doubters and prove that they did indeed belong on the sport's biggest stage. Instead, just about everything that could go wrong did. After a three-and-out on their opening position, the Hoosiers were gifted an interception off a tipped ball. But Kurtis Rourke gave the Irish the ball right back with a pick of his own, and one play later, a 98-yard run from Jeremiyah Love gave Notre Dame a 7-0 lead. By halftime it was 17-3, Indiana's offense was stuck in neutral, and a certain corner of College Football Twitter couldn't be happier.