Indiana football coach Curt Cignetti is turning his focus to next year’s team after the Hoosiers’ loss in the College Football Playoffs Friday night at Notre Dame.
While Cignetti says Indiana has a solid nucleus coming back from this year’s 11-2 team, he still needs to hit the transfer portal to fill needs left by graduations and transfers.
“Well, everything's about recruiting and development and now retention, right?” Cignetti said. “So, every year you got to start over. Now in college football, it's not quite the NFL, but it's getting close.”
One of the main reasons Cignetti was able to turn Indiana from an also-ran into a top-10 team in his first season was due to the transfer portal.
Thirteen players followed Cignetti from James Madison and a number of other starters came from other schools. That includes quarterback Kurtis Rourke, who threw for 3,049 yards and 29 touchdowns this season. He will be one of the starters the Hoosiers need to replace.
But making the inaugural 12-team playoffs may have worked against the Hoosiers as far as recruiting players in the portal.
Cignetti said because of preparation for the Notre Dame game, they weren’t able to have any players in for official visits last week. He said they brought in seven players over the weekend, but from now through Jan. 6, no official recruiting visits are allowed.
“Understand that probably 80% of the portal guys that are good players have made their decisions already, so that's just where we're at,” Cignetti said.
Indiana’s two losses this season came against teams ranked above them – Ohio State was No. 2 in the nation when IU played them, and Notre Dame finished the regular season ranked third.
Cignetti said there’s still a talent difference between IU and the top-5 programs.
“They probably got, you know, more depth than we do, and they probably have some front line guys that are just little bit bigger, stronger, faster than our guys,” Cignetti said.
Still, the Hoosiers had the most wins in a season in school history, finished the regular season ranked ninth in the nation and tied for second in the Big Ten.
