Patience? Who needs it? Not Curt Cignetti. That word is a loser’s battle cry.
After Indiana goes ‘from outhouse to penthouse,’ coaches elsewhere can’t expect a long runway of patience.
Mario Cristobal benefited from patience at Miami, but he’d previously shown progress in his third season.

These are tough times for college football excuse makers. These are choppy waters for coaches who think they’ll plot the slow route to success.

Patience has become like a four-letter word in Sunday School. Don’t say it, because nobody wants to hear it.

When Curt Cignetti needed just two years to take Indiana from the pit to the national championship game, he incinerated any lingering vestiges of the idea coaches must be allowed to implement a five-year plan before they’re harshly evaluated. He shoved a sock in the mouth of every underachieving coach who’d otherwise like to say, “Wait ’til I get some more of my recruits in here.”

We can debate how this happened. Clearly, Cignetti knows ball. Injecting transfers helped, including those he brought with him from James Madison. He developed some leftovers he inherited. He hit a home run with transfer quarterback Fernando Mendoza.

Cignetti built a smart, veteran team that does not beat itself with blunders, penalties or turnovers, while it beats up opponents. Along the way, he invigorated the nation’s largest alumni base. That’s useful in an NIL era.

Beyond how it happened, though, is what Cignetti’s success means for his profession.

Cignetti’s success ushers in even greater expectation of coaching success at a microwavable rate of efficiency. There’s never been a more perilous time to be a loser proclaiming he’s on the verge of becoming a winner. Ask Hugh Freeze about that.

“I wish I could ask for patience,” Freeze said in November, hours before Auburn fired him, “but that’s not really something people want to give in this day and time.”

I’m not sure anyone ever wanted to wait several years to see results. Cignetti proved you no longer have to wait, not in this era of NIL and transfer free agency.

Curt Cignetti effect: Patience is loser’s battle cry

As Indiana donor Mark Cuban aptly put it, Cignetti ushered Indiana “from the outhouse to the penthouse.” He made it so that if your coach resides in the outhouse after two or three seasons, he probably just stinks.

Freeze spent three years telling Auburn he was close. Maybe, he was. More likely, he wasn’t. Either way, it didn’t matter. Freeze couldn’t expect his bosses or boosters to accept being “close” to competence in Year 3 at Auburn, not when Indiana’s coach is undefeated in his second season.

Boosters and fans whose dollars fund the roster demand either return on investment or a head on a platter. Also, the more accessible the playoff becomes, the less that a reputable program’s backers are willing to accept a trip to the Pinstripe Bowl. James Franklin can attest to that.

On top of all of that, there’s this Cignetti effect. He’s performing like patience is a loser’s battle cry. In two years, he turned one of America’s worst programs into a super squad, capable of wrecking playoff teams by more than 30 points.

Cignetti’s success gives programs that never tasted glory a reason to believe in (and invest in) the possibilities — and to spit out mediocrity and try again with someone else.

Probably, a coach should still be permitted a one-year honeymoon. To be fair, Cignettis don’t grow on trees. But, by Year 2, if no signs of life are detected, then your coach probably isn’t the guy. If the program remains listless in Year 3, then he’s definitely not the guy. Be done with it.

Indiana success cranks up pressure on … Bill Belichick

As I’m beginning to call it, there was the time before Cignetti, B.C., and the time after Cignetti, A.C.

B.C., fans of Kentucky or Rutgers or Purdue or Wake Forest who demanded premier performance were at risk of being declared nutty. If you rooted for North Carolina and asked, “Why not us?” while Alabama ripped off national championships armed with a three-deep of the nation’s best talent, there was an obvious answer to that.

Now, A.C., it’s acceptable for fans from Indiana to Vanderbilt to ask that question. It’s reasonable to demand a pulse be present within two seasons.

That means you, Bill Belichick. His first season went splat. He cannot whiff again. If Cigs can get a basketball school to a national championship in Year 2, then Beli ball must improve next season to justify bringing him back in 2027.

Cignetti’s success dials up pressure on Purdue’s second-year coach Barry Odom. It makes Michigan State look rational for parting with Jonathan Smith after two bad seasons. It makes me wonder why Wisconsin wasted time bringing back Luke Fickell, after three straight bum years.

Inside the SEC, six new coaches were hired. None of them better mention the word patience.

In B.C., and in the time before NIL and transfer free agency, Dabo Swinney was the portrait of what patience could do. He went 6-7 in his second full season. Swinney got it rolling in Year 3, when he began a long stretch of double-digit-win seasons. He delivered his first national title in his eighth season.

Gary Pinkel never won a national title, but he became another testament of patience. Missouri suffered losing records in three of Pinkel’s first four seasons. Missouri let it ride, and Pinkel became the winningest coach in Tigers history, while serving some of their greatest moments.

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Miami provides a present-day portrait of patience paying off.

Mario Cristobal went 12-13 through two seasons. He got Miami to 10 wins last year. Then, the past few months, came a Year 4 breakthrough.

If a coach requires a dose of patience, he better pair patience with progress, as Cristobal did. Treading water or win-loss regression is a recipe for a swift firing.

Cignetti never asked for any patience. He never thought he needed any.

“We’ve been adamant,” Cignetti said, shortly after Indiana hired him, “that we’re going to win, we’re going to win this year, and we’re going to change the brand.”

Cignetti backed up that talk. In doing so, he sped up the clock for his peers. He removed the P-word from a new coach’s vocabulary. That word died when the calendar turned from B.C. to A.C.

Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s senior national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.

The Houston Texans’ defense scored two touchdowns in a 30-6 wild-card victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Quarterback C.J. Stroud overcame two lost fumbles and an interception to lead the offense.
The Texans will now face the New England Patriots in the divisional round.

PITTSBURGH — Stating the obvious here, the Houston Texans’ defense is championship caliber – to the point they may carry the entire roster to northern California themselves within the next month. 

That also means the pressure is on quarterback C.J. Stroud and the other side of the ball, because not supporting what has developed into one of the most simultaneously suffocating and crushing units in recent memory would be to waste a potentially deep postseason run in a weaker AFC field.  

DeMeco Ryans’ unit scored twice in Houston’s 30-6 rout of the Pittsburgh Steelers in the wild-card round Monday, Jan. 13, at Acrisure Stadium. The concerning part is that Stroud’s carelessness with the football, which resulted in two fumbles lost (five fumbles total and several issues with the snap) and a red-zone interception, kept the Steelers in the game for more than three quarters despite the Texans’ defense ultimately surrendering the fewest points and yards in team postseason history. 

‘Bad plays happen, turnovers happen in a game,’ Ryans said. ‘We bounced back and didn’t let that affect us the rest of the game.’

The defense was credited with 12 hits against Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, whom they sacked four times. 

Ryans liked that the offense finished the game strong regardless of prior mistakes. Stroud still displayed his flashes of greatness. There was the first third-down throw of the game to Christian Kirk for 36 yards and a third-and-15 completion to Kirk for 46 yards on the final play of the third quarter, which flipped the field and led to a Ka’imi Fairbairn field goal that made it 10-6. 

‘He didn’t waver,’ Ryans said of Stroud. ‘You can easily go in the tank, but he didn’t waver. That’s who he is. He is a resilient young man who’s able to bounce back. Anybody can go in the tank (after) you drop the ball a few times. You keep battling. Like, the game isn’t over.’

In Ryans’ third season (and Stroud’s), the Texans are 3-0 in wild-card games. They are the second head coach-quarterback duo since 1950 to make it to the divisional round in each of their first three seasons in the NFL. They will try to avoid going 0-3 in that round Sunday on the road against the New England Patriots (3 p.m. ET, ESPN/ABC). 

‘It was an outstanding defensive performance, one of the best that I’ve seen versus a really talented offense, talented quarterback who has played at a high level for a long time,’ Ryans said of facing Rodgers. ‘So, I’m proud of our defensive performance. I think this is the best performance we’ve had in our team history, so I’m proud of our guys for that.’

The dam eventually broke with less than 12 minutes in the fourth quarter when Rodgers dropped back and Will Anderson Jr. curled around the edge to his blind side. The 2023 No. 3 overall pick dislodged the pigskin while demolishing Rodgers, and Sheldon Rankins picked it up and ran 33 yards for a touchdown to make it 17-6. Calen Bullock intercepted Rodgers with the game already out of reach but housed it 50 yards to make it 30-6. 

‘I think our defense has played like this all year,’ Stroud said. ‘They’ve held us up. I think this is one of the best performances I’ve ever seen. It’s crazy to think the last three wild-card games I’ve played in they’ve always had a pick six and some type of two-turnover game. When you have a defense like that it’s really, really encouraging.’

The offensive line, a sore spot for the past two seasons that has clouded Stroud’s development, held up against a Steelers’ front that could have been more disruptive. Instead, the blockers gave Stroud plenty of time and were difference-makers in the run game. Rookie Woody Marks went for a season-high 112 rushing yards on 19 attempts, while Nick Chubb ran hard for 48 yards on 10 carries. Stroud completed 21 of 32 passes for 250 passing yards, and six different receivers caught at least two passes, with Kirk leading the way (8 catches, 144 yards, 1 touchdown). Nico Collins’ concussion will be something to monitor leading into the matchup against New England. 

The line was instrumental in sustaining two lengthy touchdown drives. The first was a 14-play, 92-yard sequence in which the Texans rushed seven times for 55 yards and took 7:01 off the clock. Marks’ 13-yard touchdown with 3:43 left in the fourth capped a five-minute, 51-second possession. Stroud’s efficiency on third down – the Texans started the game 7-for-9 – was another positive. Stroud said every teammate has a high standard of accountability. 

‘It’s not just on C.J., not just on me,’ Stroud said. ‘I’ve been on teams like that, where there is a lot of the pressure (on me). Everybody is, ‘I could have done this better,’ I could have done that better.’ I think it does start with me. I got to take care of the football. Other than that, I thought I played a good game.’

Coach Curt Cignetti credits the team’s success to veteran players with strong character and leadership.
Multiple Indiana players, including quarterback Fernando Mendoza, are projected to be high NFL draft picks.

Now that there’s no doubt remaining, seedy skepticism has arrived. 

So before we dive into more nonsense and deconstruct more lunacy, let’s begin where all elite teams do: players. 

Indiana has better players than just about every team in college football. 

Better than Ole Miss and Alabama. Better than Oregon and Texas and USC and Michigan and yep — hold onto your Bucknuts — maybe even better than Ohio State. 

Soon enough, we’ll add Miami to the list. 

“We’ve got a lot of veteran guys that have strong character,” said Indiana coach Curt Cignetti. “Great leaders, great players.”

What Indiana has is a bunch of players who will have long careers in the NFL. It’s so much more than just the perfect storm of motivated outcasts brought together by the coach finally getting his shot. 

This is about talented players, and one the undeniable truth that underscores it all: it’s impossible to hide on a football field ― especially in big games and big moments. Great players rise to it, flawed players wilt in it.

Cignetti, who coached at Alabama under Nick Saban and has seen the overwhelming blue-chip train firsthand, will be the first to tell you this Indiana group is built different. But it doesn’t mean they’re any less talented. 

One AFC scout, speaking on the condition of anonymity to protect his team’s draft process, told USA TODAY Sports the Indiana roster is, “A bunch of guys who will play a long time in this league. Football players, guys who love the game. It will be the most Indiana players ever drafted by a long way.”

Like left tackle Carter Smith, who has handled every team’s best edge rusher, and will do so again in the national championship game against Miami’s Rueben Bain — a projected Top 10 pick.

Like wideout Omar Cooper, who has 22 career touchdown catches. Or linebacker Aiden Fisher, who arrived with Cignetti from James Madison with little hype, and developed into an All-American.

Or center Pat Coogan, edge Mikail Kamara and running back Roman Hemby. By the time the third day of the NFL draft is complete, Indiana will have more players drafted in the Top 100 picks than a majority of FBS schools.

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Not with ridiculous internet allegations of cheating or stealing practice video or — I just love this one — a roster that’s full of grown men older than a majority of the rest of college football. 

I don’t know if internet sleuths are aware, but Vanderbilt and Wake Forest and Northwestern and Oregon State (among others in Indiana’s previous zip code) all routinely had the oldest teams in college football prior to the explosion of NIL. And all — but for a scant breakout season here and there — struggled annually to reach bowl eligibility.

More to the point: Indiana had old(er) teams in the past, and couldn’t bust a grape.

I’m just throwing this out there: maybe it has something to do with talent level of the players this time around, and the men coaching them. Not some 15-second graphic in a weekly three-hour pregame show desperate for content.

Arkansas had 17 fourth- of fifth-year starters in 2025, won two games and fired its coach. Penn State? Loaded with fourth- and fifth-year players. 

So were Nebraska and Arizona State and Wisconsin. 

Weird how no one complained about Ohio State’s loaded, experienced roster in 2024. You remember that roster, right? 

The Buckeyes spent $20 million to build it, including paying stay home money to a handful of critical starters on defense that could’ve left for the NFL. They also paid for a starting senior center, and a fifth-year starting quarterback — because coach Ryan Day wasn’t convinced he had a quarterback on his roster who could win a championship.

Then they went out and did it with an old roster, and the best freshman in the country. 

That team was celebrated as an “all-in” moment. This Indiana team may as well be a bunch of NFL rejects who have returned to the college game to play under their weight class.

This is what happens when you upset the norms, when what should be suddenly becomes what’s old and slow and yesterday. Like LSU, which went all-in by constructing a roster full of fourth- and fifth-year players — and fired its coach before a disastrous season ended. 

The one lasting takeaway from the NIL era is the systematic dismantling of norms. Nobody cares about your blue-blood status anymore. 

Certainly not Ole Miss, which built a roster with 15 starters who were four- or fifth-year players, and was a defensive stop away from reaching the CFP national championship game. 

There were no grassy knolls with the Ole Miss buildout, only the concrete fact of a dumb move by a self-centered coach that galvanized the entirety of college football around a team that prior to 2020, was an historical loser in the modern era of the sport.

Sort of like Indiana before Cignetti arrived and changed everything.

‘There was a lot of skepticism last year, that we were a fluke,’ Cignetti said. ‘That team did a lot of great things and got it all started.’

This one will finish it.

Want to know why Indiana will win the national title, and complete the greatest zero to hero rise in the history of college football? Check out the NFL draft in four months.

Elite players win games. 

SACRAMENTO, CA — Sacramento Kings guard Malik Monk was a huge spark for his squad in their 124-112 win against the Los Angeles Lakers at Golden 1 Center on Monday, Jan. 12.

Monk led all reserves in scoring as he scored 26 points in the contest, including 18 points in the second quarter, giving the Kings a much-needed huge boost off the bench.

It’s been an interesting season for Monk.

From a team perspective, the Kings are 10-30 overall, and winners of back-to-back games, something they haven’t accomplished since Nov. 22 and 24 against the Denver Nuggets and Minnesota Timberwolves.

Losing is hard for anyone. But combine that with inconsistent playing time and things can get frustrating for players. However, Monk has remained a consummate pro at his job.

‘I want to play 48 minutes a night, man, always,’ Monk told USA TODAY Sports after their win. ‘Whether I’m out there or not, I’m always going to bring energy, I’m always going to smile and always teach the young guys. It doesn’t matter what’s going on.’

That’s the message the Kings head coach Doug Christie has seemingly sent to his team and no one has exemplified that reminder quite like Monk.

‘We just try to work through it, that’s the best that we can do. The biggest thing is regardless who it is, one of our standards is professionalism,’ Christie told USA TODAY Sports about splitting minutes amongst players. ‘So be professional, cheer your teammate on, its his turn right now, the spotlight is on him, let’s encourage him, let’s be excited for him. That time is going to come for you and I expect the same out of him.’

Monk was a heavy rotational piece towards the beginning of the season, but as the losses piled up Christie had to look in other directions and try different lineups.

It resulted in Monk seeing a major decrease in playing time and even not getting in some games, altogether.

Other Kings guards like Keon Ellis and Dennis Schroder moved up in the rotation.

Christie said that it’s a good problem to have.

‘It’s a fantastic problem to have because all of a sudden you have talent you can go in different directions,’ Christie said. ‘Sometimes depending on what the game presents to you, you can coach to that. But it’s a log jam, we’ve known that from the beginning.’

Monk has seen his playing time increase recently following the news about Dennis Schroder and his three-game suspension assessed by the league office after attempting ‘to strike’ Lakers guard Luka Doncic during a feud in the arena hallway following their 125-101 loss to Los Angeles at Crypto.com Arena on Dec. 28.

Schroder was suspended for three games which began against the Houston Rockets. In that game, Monk tallied 15 points and three assists in 26 minutes.

Schroder returns against the Washington Wizards on Jan. 16.

It’s not certain whether Monk will see his minutes decrease but his play in the last two games deserves consideration as Monk has averaged 20.5 points, five assists and made a total of nine three-point field goals.

He averages 11.9 points per game on 43% from the field, including 42% from three-point territory in roughly 21.9 minutes of court time.

Monk is in his fourth season with the Kings. He signed with Sacramento in July 2022 and agreed to an extension in 2024 to remain with the team through 2028.

His nine-year career averages are 12.3 points, 3.1 assists on 43% field-goal shooting and 35% from deep.

Monk had his name rumored in trade talks earlier in the season, however those talks have seemingly calmed down, although the Kings look to be sellers as they approach the Feb. 5 trade deadline.