Heat Checks & Hail Marys - Is Curt Cignetti Too Good for Indiana's Good, B1G Football Team Tiers & Illini vs Penn State

Mike Cagley, Co-Host Sports Spectacular and Big Sports Radio

September 29, 2024

The new B1G is so big, there is only a sliver of clarity after the first two weekends of conference play determining a pecking order - other than the fact that everyone is chasing the Buckeyes. I'll try to rank the teams in tiers in an attempt provide a semblance of a B1G team ranking.

Hail Mary #1 – Is Curt Cignetti & Indiana’s Schedule Too Good for the Hoosiers Long Term Good?

Matt Stevens, the IlliniGuys football beat writer warned everyone that Curt Cignetti didn’t worry about ruffling feathers, he was at Indiana to win games. At 5-0, Coach Cignetti is proving that Matt assessed his coaching ability with incredible accuracy.

Cignetti is in his 14^th season as a head coach. He has been at IUP, Elon, James Madison and now Indiana and he’s accumulated a 124-35 overall record. His "worst" two seasons only had 5 losses - and has never had a losing season. His first year at IUP was 7-3, at Elon was 8-4, and at James Madison was 14-2 and he's 5-0 so far at Indiana. He isn’t a guy who has the patience that allows him to wait to win. He just wins.

Compare the fact Cignetti has only lost 5 games in a season twice, to the Indiana Hoosiers yearly results over the last 30 years. The Hoosiers have only lost 5 games or less in 2020 (Covid season), 2019, and 1994 under Bill Mallory in the last 30 years.

Cignetti is trending to have what could be the best first year for a Hoosier football coach since James M Sheldon went 8-1-1 in 1905! The schedule sets up well for the Hoosiers as the have one of the easier schedules this season. Rutgers and Iowa are in a similar boat. You could see all three of those teams improve as the season progresses.

Indiana plays at Northwestern, vs Nebraska, vs Washington, at Michigan State, vs Michigan, at Ohio State and vs Purdue the rest of the way. It isn’t out of the realm of possibility to say the Hoosiers could finish 10-2 or 11-1.

If they do that, it would be the best season in the history of the Indiana football program. If Cignetti’s Hoosiers can put up a double-digit win season - which has never been done at Indiana - which ADs across college football will be paying attention? Teams like Florida are almost guaranteed to be looking for a coach. The Gators expect to win national titles. If Oklahoma thinks they need an upgrade to compete in the SEC, could they be looking? What about Arkansas? They have become basketball's NIL capital, could they become football's as well?

I expect the Hoosiers to win at least 9 games this season. They have a better team than any since the 80s. Cignetti is clearly an outstanding head coach. The schedule is a good one. Does Cignetti use a generationally good season to launch himself upwards into the highest stratosphere of coaching jobs?

I don’t know, but it will be a heck of a journey finding out.

Hail Mary #2 – We're Seeing the Difference in Team Tiers

At the five-game mark, the B1G is starting to differentiate teams – at least into rough tiers.

• Tier 1 - It’s my opinion that Ohio State is the clear leader and to this point, seems to be a team on a level by themselves in the B1G. Their only peers seem to be Alabama, Texas and Georgia.
• Tier 2 - Penn State and Oregon are two teams that are proven contenders. Offensive Coordinator at Penn State, Andy Kotelnicki is getting improvement out of Drew Allar and will need him to continue that improvement to challenge the college football big boys. Oregon seems to be heating up after a slow start.
• Tier 3A - Michigan and USC are teams expected to be good with solid but not elite rosters.
• Tier 3B – Indiana, Rutgers and Illinois – teams that are hitting above their pre-season weight class. Indiana and Rutgers have softer schedules – can these teams maintain their pace?
• Tier 4 – Iowa, Washington and Nebraska – these should be bowl teams, they all have the talent to move up the tier ladder, but will they? Iowa has the advantage of the easier schedule of this group.
• Tier 5 – Michigan State, Maryland, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Northwestern – these teams will have a hard time gaining traction until they improve. Michigan State is playing better than expected and Wisconsin and Maryland are playing worse. Northwestern may drop lower after a year of exceeding expectations in 2023.
• Tier 6 – UCLA and Purdue are two teams that look bad. In this “win today” collegiate sports environment, will these coaches get a chance to build up their teams, or could patience expire, and an AD decides to go in a different direction?

These tiers will have plenty of movement as the B1G teams collide on the football field, but this is how I see it right now.

Hail Mary #3 – Illini Didn’t Win but Showed Well vs Penn State

The Illinois Fighting Illini went into Happy Valley looking to defeat the Penn State Nittany Lions. Make no mistake, the Nittany Lions were huge favorites, so much so that Illini fans wondered what Vegas knew that Illini fandom did not.

Based on the game we saw on Saturday night; we witnessed a competitive Illini team and yet Penn State had more athletes – the gap between the Penn State LBs and interior defensive linemen and their Illini counterparts was wide. Very wide. Despite this, the Illini kept the game competitive until into the fourth quarter.

The Illini committed lethal mistakes in the form of an errant snap to Luke Altmyer that resulted in a 9-yard loss and a timely recovery of the bad snap by Kaden Feagin. What followed was unimpressive as the offense no longer had the threat of run or pass to keep the Penn State defense honest. Crowd noise was also a factor as the Illini missed a 45-yard field goal after a couple of penalties including a false start on Illinois and an intentional grounding call on Altmyer.

The Illini are not good enough to win games where they lose the turnover battle 2-0 and get sacked 7 times. The good news is there are many things that are correctable. The bad news is the Illini must figure out what to do to improve the play of their interior offensive line play and provide help to their interior defensive line. These aren’t easy fixes.

Somehow, the Illini were able to keep the game competitive until nearly the very end. They showed no quit. And they took the measure of one of the better teams in the country. On the road.

Good teams can lose even when they play well. Very good teams can win when they don’t play well. The Illini are a good team – and they can’t allow themselves to make the mistakes that prevented a 14-7 halftime lead for the Illini.

The Penn State defense played so well; I could still see them winning the game with a 21-14 score even if they were down a touchdown at the half. The point is the Illini cannot effectively take a touchdown off the board due to their own mistakes. The Illini must make other teams stop them instead of carelessly stopping themselves.

That was a tough but necessary lesson to learn. Going into a bye week, the Illini have two weeks to improve and then take out their anger at their first season loss against a Purdue team that humiliated the Illini last season.