Kirby Smart opened Auburn week on Monday with his Georgia team sitting at 6-0, 4-0 in the SEC and #1 in the country after a 20-17 win over Alabama. Somewhere in the middle of the presser, he was asked how Curt Cignetti's run at Indiana, affectionately referred to as "The Cignetti Effect" has changed the expectations placed on first-year head coaches.
Smart didn't take long to answer.
"I'm still waiting for the first 'Curt Cignetti effect' in the SEC," Smart said. "It's tough, tough, tough sledding, week-in and week-out. Maybe it can happen with the right guy bringing the right players with him, but it's tough."
He never said the words "Big Ten," but he also didn't have to because the phrase "in the SEC" did the light work. The message couldn't have been more clear: What Cignetti has pulled off in Bloomington happened in a different league.
Smart did hand Cignetti credit for the piece that made it go.
"The key to all that is the quarterback, and Coach Cignetti's done a tremendous job developing or bringing or getting quarterbacks," Smart said. "That's a big part to every offense or team's success."
The quarterback track record is hard to argue with. Cignetti went to the portal for Kurtis Rourke out of Ohio in his first year, then Fernando Mendoza from Cal in his second. Mendoza became the first Heisman Trophy winner in Indiana history and was picked with the top overall pick in the NFL Draft by the Raiders to be their future franchise signal caller.
This fall it's Josh Hoover, a TCU transfer who threw two fourth-quarter touchdowns to Nick Marsh on Saturday to rally the Hoosiers from a 17-6 deficit for a 20-17 win at Nebraska, according to CBS Sports.
The full Cignetti résumé at Indiana reads like a typo. He took over the losingest program in college football history, one that had posted three straight losing seasons under Tom Allen, and went 11-2 with a College Football Playoff berth in Year 1. In 2025, Indiana went 16-0, beat Ohio State for the Big Ten title, knocked off Alabama in the Rose Bowl and Oregon in the Peach Bowl, then beat Miami 27-21 for the program's first national championship.
The Hoosiers are 6-0 this season, ranked #7, and have won 22 straight games.
None of that was a fluke for a coach who won everywhere he went before Indiana. Cignetti went 53-17 at IUP, 14-9 at Elon and 52-9 at James Madison, where he guided the move from FCS to FBS. Before that, he was the wide receivers coach and recruiting coordinator on Nick Saban's first staff at Alabama from 2007 to 2010, a stretch that overlapped with Smart's early years on that same staff.
Smart's point about the SEC does ring true this fall. Six programs in the league are breaking in first-year head coaches, many of whom entered with national title hype: Lane Kiffin at LSU, Pete Golding at Ole Miss, Jon Sumrall at Florida, Will Stein at Kentucky, Ryan Silverfield at Arkansas and Alex Golesh at Auburn.
Smart said a quick turnaround like Indiana has seen might be possible with the right hire and bringing a bunch of players along with him. Golesh, who brought 13 South Florida players with him to the Plains, is 3-2 and 1-2 in league play heading into Saturday's game against Smart and Georgia.
Earlier this summer, Cignetti passed Smart in ESPN's preseason ranking of college football head coaches, a list Smart had sat atop for a while. Then yesterday, Smart answered a question about Cignetti with a compliment for his quarterback work along with a reminder about where he coaches.
That's about as close to a jab as Kirby Smart gets during a game week focused on an SEC opponent.
Georgia hosts Auburn on Saturday. Stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.