Ryan Day or Curt Cignetti?
That’s the question FOX Sports college football analyst Matt Leinart answered ahead of Saturday’s top-five showdown between Ohio State and Indiana on FOX.
“Ryan Day is one of the best coaches in all of college football,” Leinart said on Week 7’s edition of Big Noon Kickoff. “He won a national championship, but I’m going with Curt Cignetti for the Indiana Hoosiers.”
For Leinart, it all comes down to Cignetti’s track record at Indiana.
“Since he’s [Cignetti] taken over [at Indiana], this is the winningest program in college football at 33-2. He is the back-to-back National Coach of the Year, made the playoffs in both seasons and is well on his way to a third season, won six straight against top-10 opponents, including the Ohio State Buckeyes in last year’s Big Ten Championship Game.
“Indiana was the worst program in the history of college football before he took over, and now they’re the defending national champions, and like Cig said: All he does is win. You can google him.”
After stops at IUP, Elon and James Madison, Curt Cignetti arrived at Indiana in 2024 and inherited a program that had lost 27 of its previous 36 games. He quickly turned the Hoosiers into a college football powerhouse.
After an 11-2 season in 2024 that ended with a College Football Playoff appearance, Indiana took another leap in 2025, beating Ohio State in the Big Ten Championship Game en route to a 16-0 season and the first national title in program history. The Buckeyes had beaten the Hoosiers 38-15 in Columbus in 2024, snapping Indiana’s 10-game winning streak.
Since becoming Ohio State’s full-time head coach in 2019, Ryan Day has led the Buckeyes to an 84-13 record, highlighted by a national championship in 2024.
Saturday’s matchup features two of the Big Ten’s most complete teams. Indiana ranks second in the conference in total offense (462.7 yards per game) and third in scoring (40.2 points per game). The Hoosiers also boast the conference’s top scoring defense, allowing just 11.8 points per game, and rank third in total defense (263.5 yards allowed per game).
Ohio State, meanwhile, leads the Big Ten in both total offense (503.5 yards per game) and scoring (42.7 points per game). The Buckeyes are just as formidable on defense, ranking second in the conference in both total defense (246.8 yards allowed per game) and scoring defense (13.2 points allowed per game).
