Indiana Coach Curt Cignetti built a winner right away with a recruiting strategy built for a new era of college football.

MIAMI — Indiana coach Curt Cignetti wasn’t interested in digging into tender emotions when describing how his team has coalesced on its path toward the College Football Playoff championship game. “You don’t go to war with warm milk and cookies,” Cignetti said Sunday morning in a joint news conference with Miami coach Mario Cristobal.

Over the last three years, Cignetti has gone 37-3 as the head coach of James Madison and Indiana, hardly known for being football powerhouses. In a different world, though, maybe Cignetti ended up coaching Brett Favre and saving Sherman from the 4-12 season in 2005 that ultimately proved to be the nail in his coffin.

Curt Cignetti said Jan. 18 that Indiana is avoiding the "rat poison" ahead of the national championship game vs. Miami.

With a win Monday over Miami, Indiana University would have the two most recent undefeated national champions in football and basketball.

Indiana has enjoyed a meteoric rise over the past two seasons since the hiring of head coach Curt Cignetti, and the team will have the chance to win its first national championship in program history on Monday night when it faces Miami in the College Football Playoff final.

Though some college football fans might consider No. 1 Indiana's historic run to the College Football Playoff National Championship game on Monday night a Cinderella story, IU president Pamela Whitten told ESPN on Sunday that this was exactly what coach Curt Cignetti was hired to do.

Holy cliches, Batman. On the eve of the College Football Playoff national title game, both head coaches, Miami's Mario Cristobal and Indiana's Curt Cignetti gav

In case there was any doubt about Curt Cignetti's mindset heading into Monday's College Football Playoff national championship game against Miami, the Indiana head coach removed it during his latest press conference.