***2025-26 CFB Coaching Carousel***
- Thread starter BigJCy
- Start date
I think Cignetti is a GREAT coach, and Indiana just might be the BEST team in CFB this season. Personally, I think they should be ranked # 01 (at the moment).
That being said, if Matt Campbell left ISU for any other team and took as many transfers with him as Cignetti took with him from JMU to IU, this board would crash.
From a top notch G5 (JMU) to a bottom feeder P4 (Indiana). He took really good players - already enmeshed with his culture. It worked!
It’s a G5 program man, it’s great for continuing culture but they are still G5 players with no real P4 offers. Speaks more to his ability to develop players then their actual skill because, again, G5.
How much different is that from Campbell bringing basically his entire Toledo staff to Ames?
Yes, he is a GREAT coach. However, the nucleus of those G5 players he brought with him helped the Hoosiers run through the B1G (11-1, 8-1)-* and became an instant CFP team. Forget the G5 to P4 thing (as JMU was a top notch G5 program, and IU was a bottom feeder P4 program - before the Cignetti hire), would you be okay with any coach from a B1G school going to another B1G school and taking a dozen players with them? Is that sporting or ethical in your book?
*-Edited form 10-2
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Campbell would be an awesome hire for PSU. The donors and fans would never allow it though. Once they strike out with Cignetti they hire a retred like Urban Meyer.
100% ok because that’s what happens when a coach changes programs.
Also again, it’s a G5 program, the players are almost all below even what Indiana had.
Last year Indiana lost to any team with a pulse and lost badly because, again they had a bunch of G5 players.
Indiana has the wallet of Mark Cuban (if what online Indiana fans say is to be believed). I think Cignetti can get at Indiana whatever Penn St is willing to offer him.
Yeah I see no point in him leaving. I hope he stays. I'll be rooting for them.
But it’s a similar dynamic - when coaches leave programs and want to build their new program as they see fit, they’ll take players and coaches they want to come with.
It sucks nowadays for G5 programs that are already losing their best players each year, but it’s the reality. If it’s not against the rules not many people are going to care that Cignetti brought JMU players with him.
It is, and I get your point. Just happens that it is normal historically. The Cignetti taking a dozen players is a new twist. Maybe, it becomes the new norm, but I don't ever remember a coach taking a dozen players with him. One or two, for sure - but a dozen!
Those players committed to him. Not JMU. I don't see how it's unethical. Our players committed to our staff and not ISU whether anyone wants to believe it or not.
That’s because of the new transfer rules not needing people to sit out. With that it’s now the new norm
Edit* only if the program is an upgrade
