So remember the other day, when the Blob imagined a phone conversation between IU president Pam Whitten and athletic director Scott Dolson about how they were going to keep Penn State's paws off their football coach?
"No. Blocked it out the way we blocked out that stupid Kentucky Derby column you once wrote with the stupid talking horse in it," you're saying now.
OK, FINE. Be that way.
Anyway, in this imaginary conversation, I had Whitten telling Dolson to throw more money at Curt Cignetti to keep him from bolting to Happy Valley. And when Dolson protested that IU was already paying him an arm and a leg, Whitten replied, "So make it an arm and two legs, then."
Well, guess what, boys and girls?
IU did just that this week.
What it actually did was make it two arms and two legs, which is approximately the number of appendages you get when you drop an eight-year, $93-million extension on your football coach. That works out to just over $11 million a year, making Cignetti one of the highest paid coaches in college football.
Take that, Nittany Lions!
Also any other Lions who might want to throw Coach Cig in an unmarked van and make off with him!
It seems odd to say after all those mostly fruitless afternoons in the fall across the decades, but the wind clearly has shifted in Bloomington. Football is no longer just something to keep the alumni occupied until basketball season starts. It's no longer something Lee Corso played for laughs in his early seasons at IU, because if you didn't laugh in those days you'd cry.
No, sirree. Virtually overnight, it's become as big a dog in B-town as it is everywhere else in Power 4 land.
For that you can thank the radically altered landscape of college football, which Cignetti has adroitly used to go 17-2 and 11-1 in the Big Ten in a season-and-a-half. And you can thank the management, which demonstrated this week that it ain't messin' around.
"We didn't come this far only to come this far," Dolson told ESPN after announcing Cignetti's extension. "We're all-in, and going to continue to invest and make certain that we've got our priorities in line. (Cignetti's) Priority 1, and then it's retaining our staff, and it's having the resources to build a roster."
For Cignetti's part, he said he wants to be a Hoosier for the rest of his coaching days. It's what coaches always say when their ship comes in, but usually it's a Michigan Wolverine or an Ohio State Buckeye they wanted to be for the rest of their coaching days. Being an eternal Hoosier? When did any self-respecting college football coach ever aspire to that?
Which is exactly why you should suspect Cignetti isn't just following the requisite script. Could be he really means it -- as does Indiana.
Show him the money, as they saying goes?
Well. Money shown.
No comments:
Post a Comment