Indiana football looks like they found their next head coach. The Hoosiers are finalizing a deal with former James Madison football coach Curt Cignetti to take over their program, per ESPN's Pete Thamel.

The hiring comes days after Indiana football fired former coach Tom Allen following a disappointing 3-9 season, including a 1-8 conference record. While coaching the Hoosiers since 2017, Allen has only led Indiana to two winning records when they went 8-5 in 2019 and 6-2 in 2020. They've also only appeared in two bowl games since Allen became the coach. He finished his time in Indiana with an overall record of 33-49.

Cigentti led James Madison to an outstanding 11-1 record this season, including a 10-0 start which earned him the Sun Belt Conference Coach of the Year award. The Dukes didn't just get off to a historic start, but are going to their first bowl game in program history. They initially lost a petition to the NCAA to qualify for a bowl game, but will make it anyway since not enough qualifying FBS teams finished with six-win seasons.

In his five seasons at James Madison, Cignetti finished with a 52-9 record. He previously coached at IUP and Elon, and has a combined head coaching record of 119-35. The move to Indiana will be the first time Cignetti is the head coach at a Power 5 program.

Indiana football is hoping Cignetti will be the key to transforming their program, which is one of the worst in history among Power 5 conference schools. the Hoosiers have not had a coach with an overall winning record since the 1930s and 1940s when Bo McMillin had a 63-48-11 record with the team from 1934-1947.