Steve Sarkisian reveals how Curt Cignetti, Indiana sparked changes to schedules in college football

In just two years, Curt Cignetti took Indiana from a three-win program to a national champion. The historic turnaround captivated the college football world, but Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said the Hoosiers’ approach to scheduling is also having a ripple effect.

Sarkisian praised Cignetti’s quick success at IU, which came with an infusion of experienced talent from the transfer portal. But over the last two seasons since Cignetti took over, the Hoosiers have not played a power conference opponent out of conference. That’s again the case this coming season.

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Because of the Hoosiers’ non-conference strength of schedule, Sarkisian said it allows the players to be fresher for Big Ten play. As a result, he sees other programs taking a similar approach while trying to follow the “Indiana Way.”

“There’s a lot of ways to find the path to make it,” Sarkisian told Greg McElroy on Always College Football. “Curt Cignetti, an amazing job at Indiana. What he’s done the last two years, there’s not a guy in our profession that can’t say, ‘What an unbelievable job.’ The way he did it has been somewhat unconventional with the sixth-year seniors, the transfers, the veteran group, the way they practice. All those things. But one thing in there, he adjusted their schedule, too. They’ve got a fresh team, they’re playing a lot of players early in the year, they’re a happy team.

“We can’t, everybody, want to adopt the ‘Indiana Way’ but then, not adopt all of the ‘Indiana Way.’ But other people now are starting to follow suit. So to Coach Cignetti’s credit, everybody wants to impact our sport in some way, shape or form in a positive way. He’s impacting people because people now are starting to adjust their non-conference schedules because they’re seeing the value of another win as opposed to the value of the strength of your schedule.”

Steve Sarkisian: ‘How do we find equity in strength of schedule?’

Indiana’s 2025 schedule starts off with three straight G6 opponents in North Texas, Howard and Western Kentucky. Looking ahead to the future, the Hoosiers also withdrew from a scheduled series with Virginia, which was to begin in September 2027. Ahead of last season, Curt Cignetti defended the decision to withdraw from the series and said the scheduling philosophy began before he took over at Indiana.

All the while, strength of schedule remains a topic of conversation around college football, particularly with regard to the College Football Playoff. Steve Sarkisian reiterated his desire for “equity” with schedules, citing the conversations around the last two CFPs.

“The reality of it is, and we’re all trying to figure this out to where you can play a schedule and if you go 11-1, regardless of what that schedule is, you’re going to make the playoffs and it doesn’t matter how many tough opponents you had,” Sarkisian said. “You’re going to make the playoffs. You can play, like us, five Top 10-ranked teams and go 3-2, and be left out of the playoffs. Granted, you can say, sure, we should’ve beaten Florida. I understand all that. Or we should’ve won at Ohio State or won at Georgia. I get all that. But here we go again.

“And nobody wants to address that aspect of it until they get put in the shoes that we were in. I probably didn’t want to address it as much a year go when it wasn’t me. But it was Alabama, it was South Carolina, it was Ole Miss two years ago that were going through the same thing. So how do we find equity in strength of schedule or reward those teams that are playing that strength of schedule? Because that’s what the public wants. The public wants to see these great games. … But yet, if the juice isn’t worth the squeeze at the end, that’s a big risk that we all are deciding to take to play that game.”