GregFisher

IU Kelley School of Business

[CFP @CFBPlayoff]

Wholesome moment🥹

#CFBPlayoff #NationalChampionship

[Steve Magness @stevemagness]

We just witnessed the best coaching job in history.

Indiana football has long been horrible. Regarded as the “losingest” team in major college football. They were a basketball program. A place where football dreams went to die.

That is until Curt Cignetti showed up and said “I win. Google me.”

In an era of college football where the rich get richer, where 5 star players transfer for millions of dollars, where Texas head coach Steve Sarkasian said just last year that we may not see an undefeated team for a long time because of those changes….how in the world did a team led by a 2-star quarterback, 0-star wide receiver and tight end, and a bunch of 3-star recruits pull it off against talent juggernauts?

The 64 year old Cignetti’s long and circuitous rise to the top has been well documented. But what stands out is a leader who is clear in both who he is and what team he wants to build. At it’s heart there’s a coaching philosophy built on the fundamentals, a loyalty to his staff, and a clear eyed focus on helping kids get better.
In a world where performative nonsense like dancing around on TikTok to get a recruit, or acting like you care about a kid and then looking for their replacement in the transfer portal, Cignetti made genuine care and development his secret weapon.

Principle 1: Get the Right People

Cignetti’s journey included decades of being an assistant at numerous stops. When he finally got his shot to lead a program, it was at D2 Indiana University of Pennsylvania when he was nearly 50 years old andhe had limited money for much of his staff. His rise through the ranks was slow, going to lower level schools like Elon and James Madison, before getting his “big shot” at Indiana.

As he rose, it would be natural for him to look for bigger-name assistants. His salary pool increased from begging people to work for poverty levels to being able to pay hundreds of thousands. Yet his assistants were guys he brought along the way.

Offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan has been with him since 2016 at IUP.

Defensive coordinator Grant Haines since 2014.

Special teams coordinator from James Madison in 2019.

He didn't chase names when he hit the big time. He trusted his guys. And he recognized that continuity was kind of a superpower, "Everybody's on the same page," he relayed as the advantage. They’re committed to the program and the process. In an era of jumping around, Cignetti prioritized loyalty and rewarded his people for it.

That approach didn’t stop with his staff. His emphasis in recruiting wasn’t to play the game of getting the stars. “I am into production over potential…I’ve never really look at stars ever.” He focused on character guys, who had a chip on their shoulder, who loved and were obsessed with the game.

You can see it in their quarterback Fernando Mendoza. Cignetti and offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan identified his “prep” and “obsession as his elite traits.

It’s one of those easy-to-say, hard-to-do things. Everyone talks about character, desire, and so forth. But it’s clear based on the IU roster that they knew what kind of players fit their program and focused on that. It’s a lesson legendary coach Leroy Burrell taught me during our run of NCAA success at Houston. “We’ve got to take the right chances on the right guys. We can’t just rely on the #1 recruit whose perfect.”

So many other teams go for a collection of stars. And for the name programs, they can rely on collecting talent and hoping it works out for most of them. But as we so often see, that often backfires.

One reason is that research shows an uncontrolled ego is a sync killer. It prevents teams from gelling, both with one another and with the overall philosophy of the team. It’s clear watching Indiana that these guys were bought in with the same philosophy.

As Cignetti said, “We’re not going to recruit selfish guys, I guys, or guys that don’t want to pay the price.” Again, it sounds cliché, but if you can actually live it, embody it, we over me wins. The problem is that most say it, but then in their day-to-day coaching, give special treatment and exceptions for the stars. Their behavior reinforces “me” so all the preaching gets ignored. And egos win.

Principle 2: Fundamentals over Fluff

“There’s no magic wand. It’s the fundamentals…”
“The best way is to… stack good days…”
“Control the controllables… be detailed in your preparation.”
“We’re process driven, standards, expectations, accountability.”

In a time when hacks and shortcuts dominate the social media airwaves, it’s refreshing to see the basics done well winning in the actual arena.

Why? The secret is the same thing that John L Parker called “The Trials of Miles” for runners fifty years ago. It’s the same thing John Wooden expressed in basketball. It’s accumulating solid quality work on a long time.

Look, every coach under the sun preaches process.

Coaching is a copy cat business. But what Cignetti and other successful coaches do well is:

1. Clearly identify what the process actually entails
2. Relentless come back to it. They don’t let wins or losses take them away from it.

Too often, coaches talk process, but their systems are haphazard and lack clear direction to both other coaches and players for what matters, what they should focus on, and what actions they should take. In essence, coaches preach process. But in the audience players have no idea what that means. Cignetti is clear. And repetitive.

“We talk about the same thing every single game – line of scrimmage, run the ball, stop the run… turnover ratio. We’re number one in the country… explosive plays… critical situations… Every game, same stuff.”

Process speaks the language of our brain: action. Winning doesn’t mean much to our brain. But telling us that we need to execute a specific style of play, or focus on X, Y, Z after a loss, does.

The second part is what coach Tom House relayed to me, when he was talking about the star athletes he’s worked with (Tom Brady, Nolan Ryan, Randy Johnson, etc.). “They only let winning take them out of the process for a moment.”

Principle 3: Even Keel

It’s the development of equanimity. A reminder that wins and losses, good plays and bad can pull you away from doing what matters. You mess up, and your brain lingers on the past. Or you get so caught up in the success, that you look past the play or game right in front of you and start dreaming of the future.

These are the twin killers of success, lingering or apathy disguised as future focus. Kobe Bryant called it staying “dead center,” where he didn’t let his mind get too far into the past or future, or thinking about winning or losing.

Cignetti preaches a similar philosophy of being "not affected by success, not affected by failure".By dampening the emotional sine wave of the season, Cignetti prevents the "emotional hangovers" that plague inconsistent teams.

You can see it in not only what he says, but in how he acts on the sideline. He’s the definition of equanimity. The same whether it’s a miraculous play or a disastrous one.
Now, I’m not against cheering or showing emotion. Sometimes, it can be the spark that lights a team. But what we know is that good and bad vibes are contagious. A slew of research shows that if a coach is losing his or her mind on the sidelines, the players feel more stress. The coach is the thermostat, dictating what the temperature should be. Cignetti uses his consistent stoicism as a way to make sure that signal doesn’t go awry transmitting nerves or anxiety, when players need to be calm, cool, and collected.

Principle 4: People Want to Be Coached

Cignetti is often described as "blunt-spoken" and "old-school". He doesn’t engage in the traditional coach speak, or often much emotional response on the sideline, good or bad.

In our modern world, we often adopt one of two extremes. We think that the younger generation needs excessive praise, to be validated and told they are doing great things. Partially to keep them around, as you have to essentially re-recruit your athletes every season. Or, we put on the grumpy old man hat and complain about kids these days not being tough enough. So we impersonate a hard-ass, thinking we’re instilling toughness. Both miss the boat.

Cignetti coaches with authenticity. If a player performs poorly or mess up, they’re told about it. And how to improve. If they perform well, they’re told good job and to do it again. Consistency matters. Players know what to expect. They know where they stand. And they know that their coach is going to help them get better.

Cignetti’s approach reflects something I covered in Do Hard Things, that both coaching and parenting research tells us that it’s not an either/or. It’s a both and. The best methods tend to marry high demand with high support. Meaning, you have standards and expectations, but the kid knows you are there to help them get better. That you genuinely care about them.

It reminds me of another Houston coach I got to witness first hand, Kelvin Sampson. He’d talk about how kids wanted to be coached hard, to be held accountable. But to do that, they needed to know you cared, that you were going to help them get better. That you weren’t using them.

Principle 4: Understand the Paradox of Intensity

There’s a paradox in football and most sports. Aggression is encouraged. But too much and we lose control. You need intensity to want to be a lineman ready to to bulldoze a 300lb guy to get to the quarterback. But too much, and you jump offsides, or get a roughing the passer, or some silly mistake.

It’s part of our brain. Too much aggression and our goal-directed behavior shuts down. You can see this in road rage, where our executive function gets thrown to the wayside to let rage take over.

Cignetti demands that his teams be the least penalized and the most turnover-averse. This paradox—playing with violent aggression while maintaining cognitive discipline—is the "special sauce.” It’s at the heart of requirement to be "Smart, Disciplined, Poised.” He’s not preaching calm as the absence of intensity. He’s teaching calm as the container that makes intensity usable. Because he knows what every coach eventually learns the hard way, one undisciplined burst can negate ten dominant plays.

In my work, I’ve come to think of this as controlled intensity. The ability to turn up force without turning off your brain. When aggression tips into rage, we get the modern version of “battle madness”: road rage, tweet rage, the impulsive cheap shot after the whistle. You’re still moving fast, but you’ve lost the plot. Aggression can boost performance, but only a certain kind; one where you’re still steering, not just reacting. The paradox is the point: you play on the edge of chaos, but you refuse to become chaotic.

The Vikings understood the same principle in their own brutal way. They had berserkers—fighters who could whip themselves into a ferocious state—but their poetry also warned about the cost of mental fog in battle, the hesitation or blindness that gets you killed. The ideal wasn’t constant rage; it was ferocity paired with clarity. History keeps making the same point: pure fury looks powerful until it meets a disciplined opponent. The shift from “berserk” warfare to more ordered, rational fighting wasn’t about becoming softer; it was about becoming more effective. This is the “special sauce” in Cignetti’s style.

Aggression is welcome, but it must be trained into a proactive force, not a reactive one.

-
I’m not on the inside. I don’t know Cignetti. The secret is almost assuredly that there is no secret.

Performance is complex. Too often we reduce it to slogans or cliches, without realizing WHY those sayings became cliches in the first place. Process over outcomes was a way to recenter our focus, to pull us away from the natural tendency to obsess over wins and losses, and instead focus on actions we can take.

But somewhere along the way, many forget the underlying purpose of those cliches. They forget that they were meant to balance out the messiness of performance, to gently nudge us to paying attention to the big items that matter. And more importantly, our words have to reflect those actions. Cignetti seems to have figured that out. He knows who he is. He knows and values his people. And he’s put his process and principles front and center. And then most importantly, coaches by them.

Hats off to one of the most impressive coaching seasons I’ve seen.

[Edward Koton 🇵🇪 @EdwardKoton15]

Indiana vs. Miami National Championship Extended Highlights.

[GregFisher @GregFisher]

@EdwardKoton15 This will be studied for many, many years to come as the absolute best form of entertainment one can squeeze into 20 minutes. Pure cinema!

[Indiana Football @IndianaFootball]

#HeisMendoza.

[GregFisher @GregFisher]

@NotDauntedBlake @CoachUrbanMeyer looks so bought in!

[GregFisher @GregFisher]

@AssemblyCall Best endorsement for our new coach right there

[GregFisher @GregFisher]

I'm preparing to run the Comrades -- a 90km [56 mile] run between Pietermaritzburg and Durban in South Africa -- in June 2025. To keep myself accountable as I prepare, I have decided to share the journey online via Substack.https://t.co/Zd4KyJxc2I

[GregFisher @GregFisher]

@logan_roberson Jack Clark was phenomenal in that game. Whole Panthers team was fun to watch

[GregFisher @GregFisher]

Check out the latest article in my newsletter: Flywheel https://t.co/u6uHogJ5Cp via @LinkedIn

[GregFisher @GregFisher]

@RossDellenger Brilliant

[Ross Dellenger @RossDellenger]

Brash & bold, neat & clean, perhaps even OCD, Curt Cignetti and his collection of G5 All-Stars are making history using Nick Saban's "process" at a basketball school that once considered "giving up" on football.

Inside the improbable rise of the Hoosiers https://t.co/E1IIyFm6oB

[Mike Golic Jr @mikegolicjr]

Sound up on this one. had to break down one of my favorite plays I’ve watched all year courtesy of the Hoosiers.

Watch TE44 and LT65. It freaking MATTERS to these dudes at IU.

[GregFisher @GregFisher]

@hoosiercommish I reckon Cig is engineering this on purpose to keep the team hungry.

[Tour de France™ @LeTour]

𝑴𝒂𝒓𝒌 𝑪𝒂𝒗𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒉, 𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒂 𝑻𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒅𝒆 𝑭𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝒍𝒆𝒈𝒆𝒏𝒅.
Congrats @MarkCavendish, and thank you!

𝑴𝒂𝒓𝒌 𝑪𝒂𝒗𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒉, 𝒂̀ 𝒋𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒊𝒔 𝒖𝒏𝒆 𝒍𝒆́𝒈𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒆 𝒅𝒖 𝑻𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒅𝒆 𝑭𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆 !
Bravo Mark, et merci !

#TDF2024

[GregFisher @GregFisher]

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[GregFisher @GregFisher]

@Antgotclout Hoosier for life!