Kirk Herbstreit names Indiana's Curt Cignetti as 2024 Coach of the Year in annual Herbie Awards
Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti was Kirk Herbstreit’s winner for coach of the year in college football in 2024 during the annual Herbie Awards. Cignetti led Indiana to an 11-1 mark in 2024.
On top of not only putting together the historic regular season for the Hoosiers, Cignetti did so in the first year of the 12-team playoff, earning Indiana an at-large bid to the field.
Indiana will face Notre Dame in South Bend to open the playoffs in the first round.
“Well we do know and they went to Ohio State, got off to a great start, slowed off a little bit, he got offended when anybody even asked him, ‘Are you still a playoff team?’ And now he gets his chance. He’s going to have a chance to show what his team is all about. They’ve got a challenging game on the road in South Bend. Cannot wait to see that matchup,” Herbstreit said on the awards show on Friday night.
And Cignetti, for his part, kept up his brash way the day before the bracket was revealed, when Indiana was ranked No. 9. The Hoosiers ultimately are in the field as the No. 10 seed.
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“9th in the CFP. Yeah, here’s my question: There’s six one loss teams in the country. Right?” Cignetti said in an interview with CBS Sports on the Saturday before the bracket was revealed. “We lost to the second ranked team on the road. Penn State lost to the fourth ranked team at home. Texas lost to the fifth ranked team at home. Boise State lost to the seventh ranked team. Notre Dame lost to Northern Illinois. And SMU lost to an unranked team. At the time that they played.
“So how are we not, right now, seeded for a home game? That’s what I want to know. We’ve got the largest margin of victory in the country. Okay, take out the FCS and G5. Right? P4 only. We’re outscoring people 40-17. Second in the country. So, because our name is Indiana and not Michigan?”
Indiana was dominant in the Big Ten in Cignetti’s first season there, with their only loss coming to No. 2 Ohio State in Columbus. Hoosiers quarterback Kurtis Rourke has completed 70.4% of his passes for 2,827 passing yards, while tossing in 27 touchdowns and four interceptions.