The Indiana football team hasn’t lost a game since December 2024, though it came pretty close this past Saturday in a road clash with Nebraska. The Hoosiers were trailing going into the fourth quarter but would go on to win 20-17 thanks to a 44-yard touchdown from Josh Hoover to Nick Marsh.
As it turns out, IU head coach Curt Cignetti used inspiration from Kansas to design what turned out to be his team’s game-winning score. He gave the Jayhawks’ offensive creativity a significant endorsement in his postgame press conference.
“The fourth-and-1 play, Kansas made that one famous with that guy starting at quarterback for Tampa,” Cignetti said. “That guy’s a good coach. We stole that one about five, six years ago.”
Cignetti immediately referenced Jalon Daniels, who just picked up his first win as an NFL starter on Thursday Night Football, and associate head coach Andy Kotelnicki, who is back with the program for his second stint. That would place the play in the first era when Kotelnicki was coordinating Kansas’ offense.
In this case, IU used the formation to sell the run and got Marsh behind the defense, where he went untouched for a touchdown. They’d ultimately go on to win the game because of a play that Kansas “made famous.”
While Kotelnicki took a two-year hiatus to be the offensive coordinator at Penn State, he was a game changer for KU during its first surge under Lance Leipold. By the second year he was calling plays, the offense was averaging 7.0 yards per play, which was a school record at the time and ranked second in the country behind only Ohio State.
Kansas may be struggling to find offensive consistency right now, but it says something when one of college football’s most respected figures is influenced by your scheme. The Jayhawks’ offense looked more explosive than it had all season during last week’s loss to Utah, so hopefully Cignetti’s words are a good omen for the program moving forward.
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