The Hoosiers' roster is filled with different kinds of players, but all had to meet Cignetti's standards.
www.espn.com
Interesting article about Cignetti's approach. I know people are tired of hearing about him, but he has developed the most successful blueprint in terms of how to use the portal effectively without spending obscene amounts of money.
This quote I think is pretty important:
"
I watched every guy," he said. "I kind of did the board. ... I'm in there watching all the guys, ranking them. Repetition is the mother of learning, and you get better and better at it."
Cignetti became IUP's coach and general manager. He didn't have much choice in Division II, where resources, including scholarships, are scarce.
"It's like they do at Division I with NIL money -- we do it with scholarship money," Tortorella said. "He wasn't used to that coming from Alabama, but he was on top of it right away."
Cignetti learned how to spread funds around. There were priority positions, of course -- quarterback, defensive end, cornerback, wide receiver -- but having too much in one bucket left the team vulnerable elsewhere.
He always took care of the offensive and defensive lines."
I think a lot of people are caught up in dollar amounts, or even ages of players. To me it's all about how hard they work in their evaluations. The more work you do, the more studious you are, there's a lot you can do. It isn't all about making players rich, you can go find someone who is going to be happy to play for 100K NIL a year and he could be the difference in winning a title or not.
Relying on recruiting rankings is laziness I think a lot of coaches seem to fall into, try to get a "good class" and don't really do the hard work it takes to dig up talent.
