There is a time and a place to renegotiate money with the head coach at Indiana.
That’s in December, when the regular season ends, and at least for the last two seasons, before the College Football Playoff begins.
As part of what sounds more annual corporate review than college football, Cignetti, his personnel staff, the players and their agents work out terms for the next season. And that’s been a very successful process for the Hoosiers over the last two years. Cignetti said recently the only player he’s lost at Indiana he wanted to keep was quarterback Alberto Mendoza.
In addition to his head coaching duties, Cignetti is the final decision maker on who gets paid what. He has a multi-member personnel staff similar to a professional front office that deals with the minutia.
Cignetti says he doesn’t deal with agents directly. And he says he never has players come to him directly and ask for more money.
But he does sit in the CEO chair, as the final decision maker. And if a player makes a request to renegotiate terms at the wrong time of year, those conversations are pretty short.
“Every once in a while my recruiting guy will walk in my office and say ‘I heard from so-and-so and Johnny is wondering if…,’” Cignetti told Rich Eisen this week. “And it’s pretty easy. ‘No.’”
Over the last couple months Cignetti’s production over potential mantra has been put to the test. The staff has had the opportunity to recruit a caliber of elite talent not previously available to the program.
They moved swiftly in the transfer portal, assembling one of the nation’s best classes in January.
But the 2027 high school class hasn’t been so smooth. Indiana has what is currently around a national top-30 class, but based on the caliber of players they’ve been involved with, you get the sense the 16-0 defending national champions could have a better class if that’s where their priorities were.
Instead, Cignetti has had to say no a bit more often. If given a choice between an elite high school prospect and a proven college player, it seems fairly clear which way IU is leaning. Especially as the market for top-end high school talent soars.
Cignetti didn’t win the national title with the resources of Ohio State, Texas, Miami and others. It seems fairly clear the program still doesn’t have unlimited funds, which is forcing difficult decisions along the way.
“You gotta be smart too, because the market is always changing, and this high school market, it’s out there,” Cignetti told Eisen. “So you can’t really go all the way with everybody you’d like to. Because you gotta be able to keep your good players and add a few guys in the portal where you’ve got critical needs.”
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