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The Indiana Hoosiers have tied their head coach Curt Cignetti to a mammoth eight-year contract worth $11.6million to keep him from the clutches of their college football rivals.
Cignetti had been linked with the vacant position at Penn State after they fired head coach James Franklin on Sunday.
The deal now makes Cignetti the third highest-paid coach in college football behind Georgia's Kirby Smart and Ryan Day of Ohio State, who earn $13.2m and $12.5m respectively.
Cignetti, whose previous contract was worth $8.3m, has been handsomely rewarded for his team's perfect start to the season.
The No. 3 ranked Hoosiers are now 6-0 and have claimed impressive wins over Oregon, Illinois and Iowa.
They have picked up from where they left off last year, when Indiana was the surprise package of the 2024 season and made the College Football Playoff.
The Indiana Hoosiers have tied head coach Curt Cignetti to a mammoth eight-year, $11.6m deal
Led by quarterback Fernando Mendoza, the Hoosiers are 6-0 and ranked No. 3 in the country
Cignetti had been heavily linked with the vacancy at Penn State after they fired James Franklin
Following their 30-20 road win over then-No. 3 Oregon, Indiana currently has its highest AP ranking in history. A top-four playoff seed, and an accompanying first-round bye, are real possibilities.
Cignetti is 17-2 since arriving from James Madison, his only losses coming last year against Ohio State and Notre Dame teams that ended up in the National Championship game.
The Hoosiers returned four starters on offense and four on defense, brought in 23 transfers including quarterback Fernando Mendoza and picked up where they left off.
Cignetti's impressive work in Bloomington put him on the radar of Penn State as they search for a replacement for Franklin.
Penn State fired Franklin less than 24 hours after a 22-21 home upset at the hands of Northwestern all but ended whatever remote chance the preseason No. 2 team had of reaching the College Football Playoff.
Terry Smith will serve as the interim head coach for the rest of the season for the Nittany Lions, who began the year with hopes of winning the national title only to have those hopes evaporate by early October with three consecutive losses, each one more stinging than the last.
Penn State, which reached the CFP semifinals 10 months ago, fell at home to Oregon in overtime in late September. A road setback at previously winless UCLA followed.
The final straw came Saturday at Beaver Stadium, where the Nittany Lions let Northwestern escape with a victory and lost quarterback Drew Allar to injury for the rest of the season.
