MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Don Fisher never expected anything like this to happen.
Half a century ago, when the Bob Knight-coached Hoosiers won the national title in 1976 with a perfect record of 32-0, Indiana basketball and football play-by-play could be heard behind the microphone.
And on Monday, he was scheduled to explain to listeners how the Hoosiers football team is trying to match the feat of becoming undefeated national champions. Indiana University was playing Miami at Hard Rock Stadium in the College Football Playoff National Championship, and the Hoosiers were aiming to become the first major college football team since Yale in 1894 to go 16-0.
“From my perspective as a broadcaster, that’s the ultimate: to be a part of something, to be a national champion,” Fisher said in the Hoosiers’ radio booth a few hours before Monday’s kickoff. “And now I have the opportunity to do the same thing in the football world. So, it’s a special night for me.”
Fisher has seen a few things as a voice for Indiana football. Most of them were, well, bad.
There was a time when the Hoosiers had just one win over 24 seasons, and that was in 2007, when they went 7-6. There was a year when they had 0 wins and 11 losses. At Wisconsin, they lost 83-20. They lost 62-0 against Iowa. It was a 28-game losing streak against higher-ranked opponents.
“I’ve seen a lot of bad football,” Fisher said.
Next up was Curt Cignetti, who entered Monday night at 26-2 in two seasons at Indiana.
Fisher was introduced to Cignetti during the coach’s infamous remark, “Purdue is terrible…and so are Michigan State and Ohio State! Go IU!” A speech he gave during the Indiana vs. Maryland basketball game. Fisher’s broadcast included Cignetti’s remarks live from the center of the court during the timeout.
“I just started laughing,” Fisher said. “Nobody had ever said that before in Indiana. So I said, ‘This is something different.’ So from that point on, I was intrigued by the guy.”
Mr. Sinetti loves Knight’s comparisons. Cininetti is not afraid to say what he thinks and has little regard for repercussions. It was the same with knights. These are not carbon copies. To our knowledge, Cignetti never threw a chair onto the field. But it’s easy to spot similarities.
Also, they both win.
“I was a huge Bob Knight fan when I was a kid,” Cininetti said. “I liked the press conference pranks and faces like throwing chairs across the court. I thought that was really cool. And the person I bought the house from was actually a great friend of Bob Knight.”
Fisher started attending Cignetti’s practices soon after the new coach arrived in Indiana to see what excites him. He noticed that Cininetti spent as much time coaching his assistants as he did his players, if not more. He’s a CEO, something he learned working for Nick Saban for four years at the University of Alabama.
Fisher will be asked what Cininetti would do. He expected Sinetti to win big.
“I knew he was going to win. I knew that,” Fisher said. “If you’ve been here long enough, you can tell if a coach understands that or if he doesn’t understand that. I watched spring practice and I could see that he understood that.”
Now, more than 2,000 games later and his voice echoing throughout Indiana, Fisher has a chance to relive that perfect 1976 memory.
“How do we get to this place in two years, make the playoffs both years and go to the national championship game the second year?” Fisher said. “That’s a miracle.”
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AP National Writer Eddie Pells contributed to this report.
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