BORDEN — Indiana football coach Curt Cignetti is eager for some clarity from the governing bodies of college athletics.
He anticipates the House v. NCAA settlement to move forward in the coming weeks, but told reporters during an appearance at the athletic department’s annual booster dinner at Huber’s Orchard & Winery that the coming revenue-sharing framework and NIL clearinghouse won’t solve all the issues plaguing collegiate athletics.
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“We need regulation, we need rules, so that will all can plan and do what we are hired to do cause right now there’s just a lot of uncertainty,” Cignetti said. “How many portal windows are there going to be? When are they going to be? And I could go on and on. We got to get the industry fixed, the game is great. We got to get the industry fixed.”
The final approval of the settlement won’t do much to impact IU football’s day-to-day operations. Much of the Power Four was already operating under the proposed revenue-sharing framework back when the portal opened December.
“There was a lot of front-loading of NIL deals, people trying to make transactions before the rev-share did pass because of the NIL Go will go into effect immediately,” Cignetti said. “That created a bit of a different world and some anxiety, a little more anxiety than normal.”
Cignetti is more concerned about the lack of clarity on the other major topics impacting collegiate athletics including the transfer portal and eligibility rules.
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He circled back to the topic when he talked about IU’s 2026 signing class.
The class currently features nine verbal commitments — Cignetti hinted that there’s more to come — but he’s still not sure how many players the Hoosiers will take thanks to the lack of overall clarity with the portal windows.
“If I just knew when the portal date would be, and what the portal pool would look like, I could figure out whether we are taking 20 or 17 high school guys relative to what our team needs look like next year,” Cignetti said. “Right now it’s hard to plan cause we can’t get any answers.”
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Indiana football coach Curt Cignetti isn’t interested in wading into College Football Playoff debate
Twelve teams? Sixteen teams? How many automatic bids should each conference get? Should their be automatic bids at all?
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The discussion about the format for the College Football Playoff in coming years has taken center stage at the SEC Meetings this week in Destin with commissioner Greg Sankey along with the conference’s athletic directors and coaches all weighing in.
Cignetti wasn’t interested in adding his voice to the growing chorus opinions on how things should be structured.
“I’ve been part of all the different formats, D2 and FCS, at the end of the day there’s one team standing whether you start with 64 or eight — there’s going to be one standing at the end, no matter what the number is, somebody is going to feel bad that they got left out,” Cignetti said with a smirk. “That’s just the way it works, you can’t make everyone happy.”
The closet Cignetti got to weighing in was admitting he likes the tweaks the committee made for next year that include removing the automatic byes for conference champions and goes to a straight seeding format.
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“The straight seeding is a good thing, would have been nice to have that last year and had a home game, 12 and a half point favorite,” Cignetti said. “We were still in control of our own destiny and didn’t get the job done. If you pinned me down, I’d probably have an opinion, but it’s not worth stating.”
Michael Niziolek is the Indiana beat reporter for The Bloomington Herald-Times. You can follow him on X @michaelniziolek and read all his coverage by clicking here.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Indiana football coach Curt Cignetti: Collegiate athletics in desperate need of better regulation
