Reusse: Indiana’s Curt Cignetti turns former Gophers homecoming patsy into giant slayer

Denver added Ben DiNucci as a practice squad quarterback Monday, Jan. 19, as another reaction to starter Bo Nix’s broken ankle. The injury took place late in the 33-30 overtime victory the officials and NFL replay crew handed to the Broncos over Buffalo on Saturday, Jan. 17.

DiNucci was the quarterback for James Madison when Curt Cignetti came there as the coach in 2019. The Dukes lost the FCS national championship game to North Dakota State 28-20 that season, with quarterback Trey Lance playing his one full season as the NDSU quarterback.

Two years later, the pairings were set up so that if form held, James Madison would be going to Fargo to play NDSU in the semifinals. Cignetti complained about this with considerable bitterness.

James Madison trailed 13-7 in the third quarter when safety MJ Hampton blocked an NDSU punt, leading to a touchdown that put the Dukes in front. The Bison regained the lead early in the fourth and then the visitors were inside the 10-yard line, ready to take the lead.

Cignetti’s quarterback, Cole Johnson, threw high and NDSU’s Destin Talbert made a spectacular one-handed, leaping interception.

Final: NDSU 20, James Madison 14.

This left Cignetti with an 0-2 career record vs. NDSU when the Dukes moved to the FBS in 2022, and then he moved to Indiana University for the 2024 season.

He could have added, “Skip the part about those two losses to NDSU and Matt Entz,” who left NDSU after 2023, moved to Fresno State as head coach in 2025 and debuted with a 9-4 record that included an 18-3 win over Miami (Ohio) in the prestigious Snoop Dogg Arizona Bowl.

The incredible part of the Cignetti story is that he was 50 during his first game as a head coach — and it was at Indiana University ... but the one in Indiana, Pa., a member of the Division II Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference.

Cignetti had spent four seasons as an assistant coach and a recruiting coordinator for Nick Saban at Alabama. It boggles the mind as to why the best head coaching job he could get out of that was the IUP Crimson Hawks — with “Norm the Crimson Hawk” as their mascot.

According to The Google, he won there, 53-17 in six seasons. All that got him in 2017 was the job at Elon, an FCS school in North Carolina. He ended James Madison’s 22-game winning streak in the Colonial Athletic Association in 2018.

Mike Houston was the coach at James Madison. One season into a new 10-year contract, he went to East Carolina. Which gave the Dukes administration a bright idea: Let’s hire the guy who ended our winning streak.

He had the infamous news conference, and then the instant turnaround: an 11-1 regular season, with a loss only to Ohio State (national champ-to-be) in the Big Ten, and then a 27-17 defeat at Notre Dame in the College Football Playoff.

And now a national title with a 27-21 victory over Miami (Fla.) and its magnificent athletes on Monday night, Jan. 19, with a touchdown created by a blocked punt and a game-saving interception — not as spectacular as Talbert’s for NDSU, but one right in the arms of Hoosiers D-back Jamari Sharpe, thrown idiotically by ‘Canes QB Carson (Gramps) Beck.

Sixteen-and-0 … the previous college team to do that being the NDSU Bison of 2019, beating Cignetti and James Madison in the FCS title game.

Gophers fans looking back to the decades when Indiana (or Northwestern) was always the preferred opponent for homecoming would like to explain Cignetti’s incredible turnaround by the transfer portal and the investment made by Mark Cuban.

First of all, Cignetti plucked many transfers from James Madison and other lower-level programs to ignite the Hoosiers’ transformation in 2024, and then Cuban — an Indiana grad — decided to jump on the bandwagon with a large investment.

From this distance, hunkered down in a TV den in this ICE-y cold locale, Cignetti’s ability to organize a coaching staff, come up with game strategies and make terrific decisions at key moments has had more to do with 16-0 than Cuban’s money.

Miami had better talent and Indiana outsmarted the Hurricanes. Alabama had at least equal talent to Indiana and the Hoosiers blew off the Crimson Tide’s doors.

OK, those side-eyed glances have now become a bit from Cignetti to entertain the TV audience, but dang, the guy was 55 and still at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and now he has turned a favored homecoming patsy of the Gophers into a giant slayer.