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By Tyler Erzberger
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Does Curt Cignetti ever smile?
The stern-faced Indiana Hoosiers head coach has been asked this question multiple times during his tenure in Bloomington. He had taken the worst program in all of Power Four football and turned them into a College Playoff team, but he never cracked even a slight grin.
After blowing out the Alabama Crimson Tide and Oregon Ducks in back-to-back CFP games, he kept his composure, merely saying that he would celebrate by "cracking open a beer" with the rest of the coaches in private.
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But on Monday night, after winning the national championship in the final seconds of a classic against the Miami Hurricanes, Cignetti could not hold back his emotions any longer.
Interviewed following the final seconds and a Gatorade bath from the players, Cignetti's mask dropped. Gone was the fiery, stoic coach, and stood the man who climbed the ladder of college football from the depths of Division II all the way to the top of the mountain.
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He began shedding tears during the interview, thanking his team and praising his Heisman-winning quarterback, Fernando Mendoza, who took a beating but still stood his ground to lead the team to victory.
"We won the national championship at Indiana University; it can be done," he said, his nose red and his eyes welling up as the confetti cascaded upon him and his players.
Cignetti praised his players and the staff for taking a program that was at the bottom of the Big Ten and, over only two years, raising it to the best team in all of college football. In his own post-game interview, Mendoza showed his arm, which was red and already bruised from getting hit so many times by Miami's star-studded defensive line.
As the fairytale moment finally came true for Cignetti, there was only one question left to ask before he headed to the locker room.
How was the man who never smiled going to celebrate?
"I'm going to have a beer," Cignetti said with a wide-spread grin on his face.
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