Curt Cignetti and the 9-1 Hoosiers moved closer to a third straight CFP on Saturday with a home win over USC. Robert Goddin / Imagn Images
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Curt Cignetti is back.
Back to making all the right moves. Back to leaving no doubt when his Indiana team takes the field. Back to the College Football Playoff.
He didn’t stray far. This isn’t some big redemption arc. Cignetti continues to reign as college football’s national champion and is 36-3 with the Hoosiers after Saturday’s 27-13 win over USC in front of 54,336 fans at Memorial Stadium. But it was getting a little weird before this one, which — barring a really, really weird development — all but locks No. 9 IU (9-1, 6-1 Big Ten) into the field of 12.
Who’s this guy botching basic clock management at the end of a game? Where has his offense gone? Why is he throwing out goofy conspiracy theories on his radio show and tweeting emojis? Does he think the SEC has bribed all of sports media with Goo Goo Clusters?
Does he not realize people who follow this sport and aren’t sycophants one way or the other are sick of the SEC and Big Ten whining, and put most of the blame for the mangling of college football on both?
It has looked from afar like displaced anger from a guy searching for answers for his own team. Saturday night after celebrating with that team, Cignetti looked like a guy with more answers. Grant Wilson is the big one, a Cignetti decision that inches the Hoosiers’ ceiling upward a bit as they gear up for another run.
Cignetti said he decided to start Wilson in this game hours after the Hoosier’s last game, an Oct. 31 escape of Minnesota that saw Wilson replace starter Josh Hoover at halftime, struggle for most of the half — then make the throw that sent the game to overtime, and the throw that won it.
That was enough. Hoover’s struggles were getting worse, and at some point it didn’t matter if it was more about performance or the upper-body injury Hoover has been nursing.
“He’s gone through so much with his shoulder,” Wilson, a seventh-year senior who previously played at Old Dominion and Fordham, said after the game of Hoover.
But if Cignetti made the decision back on Oct. 31, that’s not a health decision. Hoover was active Saturday and not on the availability report. Cignetti simply thinks Wilson is the better choice — don’t fall for the “We’ll evaluate it this week” line he threw out at his presser — and on Saturday we saw why.
We saw at times, that is. The evidence wasn’t overwhelming. Wilson threw a bad interception late in the first half that set up No. 18 USC (7-3, 4-3) to tie the score at 10-10. He threw four other passes that should have been picked, three in the end zone, one that shouldn’t go on him because his receiver fell down. But still.
He’s riskier than Hoover. He also throws a much better deep ball. A better deep ball than many, actually. And on a team with Nick Marsh and Charlie Becker, that’s a really nice trait to have.
“He’s got a beautiful (deep) ball,” Becker said.
“The ‘Go’ ball is a little easier than some throws for me,” said Wilson, adding that routes with four receivers going vertical were the bread and butter of the Fordham offense he was in for his first three years of college.
Wilson uncorked a 65-yard pass to Marsh on a post in the first half that could not have been dropped into his hands better by a football-delivering drone. His 305-yard night includes a 47-yard completion to Shazz Preston. And with the game on the line, Cignetti tapped into the skill. Or at least backed OC Mike Shanahan’s instinct to do so.
On third-and-3 from the USC 42 with 3:36 left, up 20-13, the Hoosiers called a deep shot to Becker. Wilson lofted it and it settled into Becker’s hands for a touchdown as if placed there by a football-carrying seagull.
Ballgame, over. Big passing plays, found. Points, for a team that had just 37 in regulation in its previous three games, scored. Indiana as a threat in December, a tad more believable.
So Cignetti decided to start Wilson two weeks ago — though Wilson didn’t find out until Monday, after battling the flu last week, when at practice Cignetti simply told him, “You’re gonna go with the ones.” Cignetti stuck with Wilson at halftime after the interception and just 10 points on the board. And Cignetti let him let it rip.
“It’s been a long road,” said Wilson, who last started a game in 2024 for Old Dominion. “I never thought I’d be here.”
The only Cignetti move you could really question after this one was not letting Wilson let it rip one more time in the final two minutes with the ball deep in USC territory. Hey, style points can matter to this committee. Plus, of all college football coaches to run the score up on, Lincoln Riley seems like one of the best ones. What’s he going to do, read a statement about the importance of sportsmanship afterward?
The Hoosiers ran the clock out instead. Cignetti did not bite on a question about the CFP rankings.
Indiana running back Khobie Martin, who has been hurt most of the season but had 82 yards and a touchdown rushing Saturday, did bite, saying of IU dropping from No. 4 to No. 9 in the most recent rankings: “Obviously, that was BS. We proved today that whatever the committee says don’t matter to us.”
Indiana was properly ranked at No. 9 entering this game. But it really doesn’t matter anymore. The Hoosiers will be somewhere in that field of 12 barring a shocking loss to Washington or Purdue.
They’ve got one of the best…