Curt Cignetti said is took around a minute and a half to agree to his new contract. The Pittsburgh native could have certainly leveraged the opening in his home state for the absolute maximum dollar, but Indiana is the school that gave the 64-year-old his first shot at coaching in a Power 4 conference, they stepped up to extend him and pay his assistants after his 11-2 debut season, and now they were ready to step up again following his 6-0 start to Year 2. Plus, in case you hadn't heard, players are getting paid now. There's only so much money to go around, even at a Mr. Money Bags program like, uh, Indiana.
And so while it didn't take long for Cignetti to agree to the concept of a new contract, the actual 8-year deal took some time to hammer out. On Wednesday, IU released the full details of Cignetti's new contract.
For starters, Cignetti will come to him in three buckets: a $500,000 base salary, "outside marketing and promotional income" that starts at $9.65 million and rises by $100,000 a year, plus a $1 million annual retention bonus. The retention bonuses begin on Nov. 30, 2025, with the contract beginning the following day.
All told, Cignetti will earn the following amounts from all three buckets, before incentives:
-- Year 1 (Dec. 1, 2025-Nov. 30, 2026): $11.15 million
-- Year 2 (Dec. 1, 2026-Nov. 30, 2027): $11.25 million
-- Year 3 (Dec. 1, 2027-Nov. 30, 2028): $11.35 million
-- Year 4 (Dec. 1, 2028-Nov. 30, 2029): $11.45 million
-- Year 5 (Dec. 1, 2029-Nov. 30, 2030): $11.8 million
-- Year 6 (Dec. 1, 2030-Nov. 30, 2031): $11.9 million
-- Year 7 (Dec. 1, 2031-Nov. 30, 2032): $12 million
-- Year 8 (Dec. 1, 2032-Nov. 30, 2033): $12.1 million
Cigentti's coach-end buyout starts at $15 million as previously reported, then decreases by $3 million until 2029. At that point, it drops from $6 million to $4 million, and then decreases by half the remainder per year until reaching zero in the final year of his deal. As always, the chances of the then-71-year-old Cignetti still working under the terms of this current deal by Dec. 1, 2032, are near zero.
If fired without cause by IU, Cignetti would net the total remainder of the contract.
Most interestingly, the contract legally holds Indiana's feet to the fire to keep Cignetti's contract near the top of the market so long as the coach keeps the Hoosiers among the elite nationally. Within 120 days of an IU appearance in a CFP semifinal, Coach and School are required to complete a "good faith review and negotiation" that would keep Cignetti's salary "no less than third" among FBS coaches. If Indiana fails to hold up its end of the bargin, Cignetti is free and clear to terminate his contract with no penalty. Indiana is required to do the same with Cignetti's staff pool, but the bar is lower -- fifth in the Big Ten or 10th nationally.
It's a great deal if you can get it. And to get it, all Cignetti had to do was put in 27 years as an assistant, then go 53-17 at Division II IUP, 14-9 at Elon, 52-9 at James Madison while transitioning from FCS to FBS, and then 17-2 (now 18-2) at Indi-friggin-ana.