Indiana coach Curt Cignetti revealed the ballot he filled out for the final coaches poll Top 25, and noticeably absent was: Virginia.
Virginia, with its 11-3 record, finished 16th in both national polls, so, whatever.
Cignetti, the former JMU coach, also had the Dukes down at #25 in his final poll; Madison (12-2) was 19th in the final AP poll, and 20th in the final coaches poll.
Washington, 9-4, unranked in either of the final polls, was 18th in the Cignetti rendering.
SMU, also 9-4, also unranked in either of the final polls, was 22nd.
Arizona, also 9-4, also unranked in either of the final polls – there’s a trend here – was 23rd.
He had Illinois, at 9-4, ranked 25th in the AP poll, left out of the coaches poll, all the way up at 16th.
It’s not exactly Big Ten bias there – Cignetti’s Hoosiers beat the Illini 63-10 on Sept. 20.
Personal bias could be why he had Iowa, at 9-4, and 17th in both final polls, all the way at 11th – Indiana limped to a 20-15 win over the Hawkeyes on Sept. 27.
Cignetti put Iowa one spot ahead of Alabama, who lost to IU, 38-3, in the CFP quarterfinals.
One issue for ‘Bama – didn’t finish 9-4.
(The Tide finished 11-4.)
As for the UVA and JMU snubs, dude seems to forget how he got a Big Ten job, and it wasn’t because he was 14-9 in two seasons at Elon.
Cignetti was 33-5 in his first three seasons at JMU, when the Dukes were still at the FCS level, then 8-3 in 2022, Year 1 in FBS, before going 11-2 in 2023.
Remember all the hubbub over JMU in 2023 being deserving of a playoff bid if it were to win out, despite there being a silly NCAA rule that would have barred the program from the postseason because it was in Year 2 of its transition from FCS to FBS?
There’s no hubbub if Virginia doesn’t blow a 35-24 fourth-quarter lead in Week 2, because Tony Elliott couldn’t keep his kids off their phones during an hour-long weather delay.
Virginia holds on and wins that one, there’s no hubbub over JMU Football, and who knows, maybe Curt Cignetti is still in Harrisonburg, begging for somebody to Google him.