On Monday night, the Indiana football program won its first national championship in program history with a narrow victory over the Miami Hurricanes. While the Hoosiers weren't as dominant in this one as they were in their previous two playoff games, they did enough to get the win, and solidified this year under Curt Cignetti as one of the best coaching jobs of all time.
Cignetti has made his stance clear that he does not have interest in taking his talents to the NFL, but recently, Mike Florio of NBC Sports' Pro Football Talk speculated that teams will still try to change his mind over the coming weeks.
“If an NFL team looking for a coach believes Cignetti could be the answer, and if the owner is willing to write the check to make it happen, why not make the call? Plenty of teams could do a lot worse,” noted Florio. “Plenty of teams have. And history tells us that, in the current cycle, plenty of teams will.”
While some head coaching vacancies in the NFL have already been filled, some still remain, including notable playoff contending teams like the Baltimore Ravens, Buffalo Bills, and Pittsburgh Steelers.
However, at the current juncture, it seems that Cignetti is willing to run it back in Bloomington, where the Hoosiers just completed a historic 16-0 season and capped it off by winning the national championship.
Things will look quite a bit different for the Hoosiers next year, with Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Fernando Mendoza likely heading to the NFL Draft and various other players moving on. However, Cignetti has established an infrastructure in Indiana that is built to last, and the Hoosiers figure to once again be a national powerhouse next season and for years to come.
Still, that likely won't stop NFL teams from at least attempting to change his mind.
