Curt Cignetti picked up one of the biggest recruiting wins in the history of Indiana football on Friday afternoon, picking up a commitment from five-star wide receiver Monshun Sales. The nation’s No. 8 overall recruit and No. 1-rated commit in Indiana history chose the Hoosiers over the likes of Alabama, Ohio State, LSU, Texas, and others.
And that should make Michigan State fans believe.
I know, the two things don’t seem awfully connected, but Michigan State is one of the top football programs of all time (ranked in the top 25 by the AP every year) while Indiana was recently listed as the No. 54 program in the history of college football — and I think that’s even too high.
Michigan State should see Indiana’s success as the perfect blueprint for Pat Fitzgerald to follow. I’m not saying that he needs to rip off anything that Cignetti did, but Indiana is proof that teams other than Michigan, Ohio State, and USC can win national titles out of the Big Ten. For years, it felt like Michigan State was never going to have a shot, but this is one of the top 20 college football programs of all time and it needs to start acting like that.
Before the 27-2 stretch under Cignetti, Indiana had just two seasons with more than eight wins in school history but none with double-digit victories. And they won a national title and just landed its highest-ranked recruit ever over some blue bloods.
Does it help that Sales is from Indianapolis? Absolutely, but he could have had his pick of any football powerhouse, and he chose to stick with the home-state Hoosiers.
There was a point in time when Mark Dantonio was doing the same thing in the state of Michigan. He landed guys like Lawrence Thomas, Malik McDowell, William Gholston, and several other big-time in-state guys over Michigan, but the program has fallen on hard times. It may need to increase its NIL offers to some elite guys, but Cignetti developed an identity right away, his guys bought in, and the wins started rolling in.
That’s it — that’s the blueprint.
Pat Fitzgerald has the juice
I remember seeing a tweet when Michigan State was looking for a head coach to replace Mel Tucker that said something like “Curt Cignetti would be a perfect fit at Michigan State” from an unbiased, third-party source and man, does that ever hurt now. Instead, Michigan State got Jonathan Smith and we all know how that unfortunately turned out.
I do believe, however, that Fitzgerald has the juice to turn the program right back around.
If you look at Cignetti’s blueprint other than bringing some James Madison players to Indiana with him, he developed an identity immediately, built his culture, and got all of his guys to buy in. He never got too high or too low and was never content until he won a national title — in year two (!!) at Indiana (!!). Just hearing that last phrase is all Michigan State fans need to hear in order to realize that competing at the highest level is not just possible, it should be an expectation.
If Indiana is winning national titles and landing five-stars, Michigan State should absolutely be doing the same with its history, tradition, and NIL funds.
As Dantonio famously said: Why not us?
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