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Indiana

Curt Cignetti sets firm deadline on when college football changes need to be made

Byington mugby: Alex Byington05/29/26_AlexByington

A little more than four months removed from leading Indiana its first-ever national championship in football, Hoosiers head coach Curt Cignetti delivered a serious wake-up call about the future of the sport. Or, rather, lack thereof.

Prior to speaking at an annual booster event in Borden, Ind., Cignetti suggested the current state of college football — and college athletics at-large — has a shelf life of just 1-2 years before the entire system collapses in on itself. He believes that due to the unsustainability of its unregulated financial marketplace.

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“The market is pretty expensive — it’s scary. It’s scary,” Cignetti said Wednesday, via The Hoosier‘s Colin McMahon. “… I think players should get paid. But something’s going to have to be done in the next 12 to 24 months, or universities might not be able to handle this. College football won’t exist the way we’re going right now.”

Cignetti’s dire warning came on the same day that Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) publicly introduced their bipartisan “Protect College Sports Act,” which provides limited antitrust protection for the NCAA to enforce eligibility and transfer restrictions, codifies many of the rules around NIL and revenue-sharing spelled out in last Summer’s House v. NCAA settlement, and allowed for pooled media rights between the FBS conferences as long as 75% of the schools agree to it. The bill also included language that barred coaches from leaving their teams for another job before the end of the season — dubbed “the Lane Kiffin rule” — and banned the creation of a potential “super league” or merger between the Big Ten and SEC as the only two conferences with revenue exceeding $1 billion in fiscal year 2025.

And while the “Protect College Sports Act” has faced some serious pushback from parties on both sides of the ideological spectrum — from both the athletes-first coalition and the powerful Big Ten and SEC — it remains the best and most likely-to-pass legislation on college athletics to come before Capitol Hill this year. Several partisan predecessors have failed to even go to a vote.

The Cantwell-Cruz bill is reportedly appear before the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday, where it will face scrutiny prior to being put to a vote on the Senate floor. And if it passes there, which is no small task given it would require a filibuster-proof 60 votes, it must then make its way through Congress without any significant changes before going to the desk of President Donald Trump for his signature in order to make it law.

Suffice it to say, the road ahead for the passage of the “Protect College Sports Act” bill is hardly without potential potholes. And in an election year, passing such landmark legislation is hardly a certainty even under the best of conditions. All of which makes Cignetti’s troubling warning regarding a potential 1-2 year window before the entire college athletics system collapses all the more acute.