Hoosier Horoscope
My local cartoon for the Hamilton County Reporter
“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” - Yogi Berra
This past week 2 unofficial media polls predicted the defending National Champion Indiana Hoosiers to finish 3rd in the Big Ten behind Ohio State and Oregon. Last year these same 2 polls selected the Hoosiers to finish 6th and 7th in the conference so I’d rather place my faith in something more reliable than preseason polls… like Taylor Farms lettuce.
Now I haven’t heard if Indiana Coach Curt Cignetti has made any statement about these journalistic soothsayers, but in just 2 years he’s taken the worst college football program in the country to a team with only 2 losses on it’s resume and a national title. Now I can kind of understand why some of the “experts” have picked Ohio State and Oregon over the Hoosiers. Those programs were both in the playoffs last year and they each have their starting quarterbacks returning for this season. That said, I find it difficult to dismiss Cignetti’s 2026 team so quickly. He has some great players returning and he’s picked up some great transfers through the portal. Not least of which is QB Josh Hoover from TCU. Coach Cignetti has an eye for getting just the right kind of people with the perfect mix of talent and character. Then he makes them better.
At a press conference this week the coach let everyone know that it’s time to get to work. “I’ve been on vacation long enough. I’m tired of being bossed around by my wife," he joked. “I’m ready to boss somebody else around and develop a football team. It’s all about development.”
That doesn’t sound like a man that’s going to be satisfied with last years accomplishments and settle for 3rd place in the upcoming season.
Sketches & sketchy stuff…
When I was contemplating about this cartoon my initial thought was about how much has changed in just a few years for Indiana football. My father went to IU and he took my brothers and I to dozens of games way back in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s
This program has been historically horrible and up until this past season all of Indiana Nation would have been thrilled to have a 3rd place prediction in the Big Ten. Now it feels like an insult. If you look at the initial page of sketches I thought about channeling myself and my father and communicating this feeling through the image of a son speaking to his deceased father. “Dad, they’re predicting IU to finish 3rd… and believe it or not, we’re pissed off about it.”
I ended up pivoting to the Cignetti image, because I really wanted to try and capture that iconic scowl of his in a cartoon. I also wanted to play off his “Google Me” quote. It just seemed like more fun and a better idea.
As you can see I did several versions of the coach and slowly began to widen his features and create better visual relationships. I adjusted his headset to fall below his hunched shoulders and spent some time getting his arms placed just right against his torso.
I’m sure that in the future I will need to draw the coach again and I will refer back to this cartoon and try to make improvements. In the meantime, this will be a good blueprint to start from.
Final drawing…
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