The Indiana Hoosiers have been one of the biggest stories in college football this season.
Not only did they finish tied for second in the Big Ten, but they earned a spot as the 10th seed in the College Football Playoff, where they’ll be playing seventh-seeded Notre Dame in the first round.
Prior to this year, Indiana had three consecutive losing seasons and hadn’t sniffed the top half of the Big Ten for nearly the entirety of the 72 years it’s been a member of the league.
Then, as you probably know, Curt Cignetti came along.
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Just three years ago, though, Cignetti was coaching in the FCS. During his tenure there, he guided James Madison to perennial success and led the Dukes in their seamless transition to the Sun Belt. Of course, it wasn’t going to be long before Power Four programs came calling.
Cignetti’s path is proof that there is plenty of coaching talent within smaller college football programs. I think sometimes these coaches get overlooked.
Similar to Cignetti, former Sam Houston coach KC Keeler also easily transitioned from the FCS to the FBS. Keeler was the head coach at SHSU for 11 years and led the Bearkats to an FCS national title.
Keeler and the Bearkats joined Conference USA two years ago and went 3-9 in their first season as a member of the league. College football betting odds had the Bearkats’ preseason win total at 3.5 prior to the 2023 season.
Now, they are 9-3 and nearly earned a spot in the CUSA Championship. They’ll look to get their 10th win in the New Orleans Bowl against Georgia Southern.
There was no question that other schools would come calling once they saw what Keeler was able to accomplish, especially following the step up in competition. That’s exactly what happened, and Keeler was named the new head coach at Temple earlier this month.
He’ll look to turn around a program that’s won a combined 13 games over the past five years.
Keeler wasn’t the only CUSA coach to find a new gig, however.
Former Jacksonville State coach Rich Rodriguez was named the Gamecocks’ head coach following the 2021 campaign, where the Gamecocks finished 6-5. The following year was the Gamecocks’ final season in the FCS before joining CUSA in 2023.
For a program that had a fairly new head coach, the transition from the FCS to the FBS could have been much more difficult than it was. But Rodriguez and Jax State may have had an even more seamless transition than Keeler.
After going 9-4 during their first year in the conference, the Gamecocks won the CUSA title this season and are 9-3 ahead of their Cure Bowl matchup against Ohio. The successful season led to Rodriguez being named the league’s coach of the year.
Just like Cignetti and Keeler, there wasn’t any doubt Rodriguez would be moving on to a more prominent role following his FCS and Group of Five success. He was recently named the head coach at West Virginia for his second stint there.
There were two nine-win programs in CUSA this season (minus bowl games) — Sam Houston and Jax State. Now, both coaches are gone.
I know Rodriguez has already been the head coach at WVU once before, but perhaps we’ll see more coaches from the FCS and smaller FBS programs get jobs at Power Four schools and make lowly programs competitive again.
