Could Curt Cignetti be the savior in Gainesville after Billy Napier gets canned as Gators head coach?

The Indiana Hoosiers football program is experiencing a true transformation and renaissance unlike anything in their history, and it all comes down to one man, second year head coach Curt Cignetti.

After Indiana’s dominate 63-10 win over No. 9 Illinois, fans, pundits and analysts are debating whether Indiana has suddenly become a legitimate Big Ten contender with the likes of Penn State, Ohio State, Oregon and Michigan.

For decades, the Hoosiers have been a bottom-tier, low level program that no one even thinks about nationally. Indiana has the most losses in FBS history, only one Rose Bowl appearance which was back in 1967 and their best season before 2024 was back in 1945 when the Hoosiers went 9-0-1.

Last year, Cignetti delivered Indiana’s first ever 10-win season, going 11-2 and reaching the College Football Playoffs. Indiana's only two losses came against the two teams in the 2024-25 national title game (runner-up) Notre Dame and Ohio State.

Nevertheless, people still don't believe in the Indiana Hoosiers, even after Cignetti's 15-2 record over the first 19 games of his tenure in Bloomington. This season, 'Coach Cig' is proving it wasn’t a fluke.

Expectations have not been met in Gainesville however, after the Florida Gators led by sophomore quarterback DJ Lagway and head coach Billy Napier have started 1-3 this season and he is already on the hot seat.

With college football changing in this new NIL, playoff era top tier coaches have already been let go this season including Deshaun Foster at UCLA, Mike Gundy at Oklahoma State and Brent Pry at Virginia Tech.

Could Billy Napier be next, and could Indiana Hoosiers head coach replace him in Gainesville ?

Here's what SEC Network Analyst Paul Finebaum had to say about Napier and the messy situation at Florida:

"I don’t think he’ll be fired yet because I’m not sure it accomplishes a great deal,” Finebaum said. “I mean, his team played well, they were competitive, and they still lost by three touchdowns again to their rival for the second year in a row. And you’ve lived in Florida. I’m not going to give a manifesto here, but Florida and Miami literally hate each other. It’s even different than Florida-Florida State, because they haven’t played every year.”

His record is 20-22,” Finebaum said. “The fact that we’re still discussing this as the possibility that he survives is a testament to what, I’m not really sure. But the end is very near. However [Athletic Director] Scott Stricklin decides to do it, and in what manner, I really don’t know, and quite frankly, I don’t really care. Billy Napier is not coming back as Florida’s head coach.”

Cignetti has some experience in the SEC, as he was an assistant coach at Alabama from 2007 to 2010, he was the wide receivers coach and recruiting coordinator under Nick Saban. Cignetti was an original member of Saban's first staff at Alabama, helping to recruit the nation's No. 1 recruiting class in 2008 and helped guide Alabama to the 2009 BCS National Championship with Greg McElroy, Mark Ingram and Julio Jones.

CBS Sports suggested on that it's a matter of when, not if, the Gators eat his $20-22 million buyout.

“I needed to make sure that I was going to win, and you know I didn’t care about 15 years down the road, three years down the road, or next year and winning for five years. I’d go try to pry Curt Cignetti out of Bloomington, Indiana. I don’t care how old he is. I would go and try to hire that guy and say, ‘Okay, let’s get this fixed,'” CBS said

“The Florida coach’s buyout is 85% of his current remaining contract, which would be $19.38 million after this season, with 50% of the buyout (~$9.7 million) being due within 30 days of Napier being fired and the rest being paid out in equal installments every July through 2028.”

Well we googled Curt Cignetti and he really does win anywhere, he previously coached at IUP where he went (53-17), Elon (14-9), and James Madison (52-9) before leading Indiana to an 11-2 record in 2024 and the schools first ever College Football Playoff berth.

Other notable names to keep an eye out for to replace Billy Napier at Florida are: Urban Meyer, Lane Kiffin, Alex Golesh, Eli Drinkwitz , James Franklin, Jamey Chadwell, Glenn Schumann and Rhett Lashlee.

Florida has a bye week this week before hosting Top 25 ranked Texas next Saturday.

Could Cignetti be replacing Napier at the end of the season? We don't know but what we do know is that Indiana will be ready to go against Iowa this Saturday at 3:30pm E.T in Iowa City.