INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana coach Curt Cignetti reflects on his time as an Alabama assistant coach nearly every day.
He believes his four seasons working with Nick Saban helped him learn how to prioritize organization, avoid complacency and maintain high standards. In fact, Cignetti thinks it's a primary reason he's preparing for his first Rose Bowl as a head coach.
Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer feels similarly about the one season he spent at Indiana. He developed tight bonds there with fellow staff members who eventually followed him to Tuscaloosa and helped orchestrate the 11th-ranked Crimson Tide's impressive comeback at No. 8 Oklahoma last weekend.
On New Year's Day, Cignetti, the two-time AP Coach of the Year, will square off against Saban's replacement in Pasadena, California, vying off for a spot in the College Football Playoff semifinals — against the schools that helped put them on this stage.
“I wouldn’t be where I am today without my time under Nick,” Cignetti said Monday. “We had great years there. We took over a team (that was 6-7), we went 7-6 and 12-0 the next year in the regular season. We fell short in the SEC (title) game to (Tim) Tebow and Florida and Urban (Meyer), then had a rematch the next year and beat them and won the national championship at the Rose Bowl.”
Cignetti was already an established assistant coach when Saban hired him following the 2006 season. The Pittsburgh native had more than two decades of Football Bowl Subdivision experience and a track record any national championship contender would want.
In three seasons at Rice, Cignetti helped Mark Comalander, future NFL draft pick Donald Hollas and Quentis Roper all finish their careers among the five most productive quarterbacks in school history. Cignetti did the same with Matt Baker at Temple, and by the time his six-year tenure at Pittsburgh ended, five of the Panthers' top 10 in career passing yards had worked with Cignetti.
Then it was off to North Carolina State, where Cignetti connected with his star pupil, Philip Rivers, an Alabama native and four-year starter who beat the Hoosiers in his second career game. So when Saban needed someone with a penchant for finding and developing quarterbacks, Cignetti seemed like a natural — even if he was coaching Alabama's receivers. The personal connections didn't hurt, either.
“I’ve watched Curt grow as a coach in every one of his stops since he left us," Saban said Monday. “You know, I used to coach for his dad. So I knew Curt when he was a high school quarterback. ... So we saw him grow and develop as a player and a coach, which has been really fun.”
After Alabama won a national title in Cignetti's fourth and final season as an assistant, he took on a new challenge — as head coach at Indiana University Pennsylvania, the same school where his father, Frank Sr., carved out a Hall of Fame coaching career.
“He had some questions about whether that would be a very good move for me. I was just ready to kind of run my own show,” Cignetti said, explaining Saban's reaction. “I was just ready for something different. I respected his opinion, but I decided to make the move.”
Over the next 15 seasons, Cignetti bounced from the Indiana in eastern Pennsylvania to Elon in North Carolina to James Madison in Virginia to Indiana University, never posting a losing season while presiding over the most successful transition of an FCS school to the FBS and now, perhaps, the greatest turnaround in FBS history.
In just two seasons, the Hoosiers won their first Big Ten title since 1967 and their first outright title since 1945; produced their first Heisman Trophy winner, Fernando Mendoza; and claimed the No. 1 ranking for the first time. Indiana (13-0) enters the CFP as the top seed.
Cignetti insists none of it may have been possible without Saban's tutelage.
“I probably think about it every single day, because it had such a big impact in my growth and development,” Cignetti said of his years with the Crimson Tide. “I think philosophically, the program that we run here is probably a lot more the same than different than Alabama. There’s probably not a day that goes by where I don’t draw from those experiences.”
And DeBoer, a former Indiana offensive coordinator, understands what Cignetti is talking about.
In 2019, DeBoer was working for a Hoosiers program on the rise under coach Tom Allen. Indiana finished that season at 8-5, providing DeBoer the launching pad to his first head coaching job at Fresno State. DeBoer then moved on to Washington, where he led the Huskies to the national championship game following the 2023 season.
The Hoosiers were even better in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season when Nick Sheridan, now Alabama's quarterbacks coach, replaced DeBoer as the play-caller and Kane Wommack, now the Tide's defensive coordinator, was completing his second season in the same capacity with Indiana.
“He was doing everything he could to be a team player. Whatever it was, he was willing to work to do whatever was best for our team, not just his side of the ball,” DeBoer said of Wommack. “I’m glad that he was a big part of me going there, trying to get me to Indiana. I’m glad he returned the favor and came here.”
Without DeBoer and Wommack, things fell apart quickly in Bloomington.
Allen endured three successive losing seasons, which led to his firing, the arrival of Cignetti, his infamous “Google me” quip and a transformation even the most loyal Hoosiers fans — including DeBoer — never saw coming.
DeBoer, like everyone else, has been impressed with what he's seen from his old school.
“I felt like when we were there, there was a growth, an investment that was happening and there was success in ’19 that felt like you were getting over the hump,” DeBoer said. “But coach Cignetti has done a great job providing the spark, which really leads to people continuing to be all in. As you get more people all in, you get the moments that you’re in right now.”
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FILE - Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti shouts to the fans as he leaves the field following an NCAA college football game against UCLA, Saturday, Oct. 25, 2025, in Bloomington, Ind. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings, File)
FILE - Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti holds up the championship trophy after the Big Ten championship NCAA college football game against Ohio State in Indianapolis, Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Justice Department has released tens of thousands more documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, a tranche that included multiple mentions of President Donald Trump but added little new revelatory information to the long-anticipated public file on the late financier and convicted sex offender.
The release is the most voluminous so far and comes after a massive public campaign for transparency into the U.S. government’s Epstein investigations.
Many of the mentions of Trump in the file came from news clippings, though it includes an email from a prosecutor pointing out the flights that Trump took on Epstein’s private jet during the 1990s.
The two men were friends for years before a falling out. Trump has not been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein. The Justice Department issued a statement Tuesday that some documents contain “untrue and sensationalist claims” about Trump made shortly before the 2020 election — and said one document, purported to be a letter from Epstein to Larry Nassar, a sports doctor convicted of sexually abusing Olympic athletes, had been deemed fake.
Here are some takeaways:
Among the mentions of Trump in the latest batch of the Epstein files is a note from a federal prosecutor from January 2020 that said Trump had flown on the financier’s private plane more often than had been previously known.
An assistant U.S. attorney from the Southern District of New York said in an email that flight records the office received on Jan. 6, 2020, showed that Trump was on Epstein’s jet “many more times than previously has been reported (or that we were aware).”
The prosecutor who flagged the Trump mentions in the flight logs said they did so because lawyers “didn’t want any of this to be a surprise down the road.”
His travels on Epstein’s plane spanned the time that would likely be covered in any criminal charges against Epstein’s co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell. Trump was listed as a passenger on at least eight flights between 1993 and 1996, and on at least four of those flights, Maxwell was also there, according to the email.
On one of those eight flights, in 1993, Trump and Epstein were the only two passengers listed in the flight logs. On another flight, the three passengers listed in records are Epstein, Trump, and a redacted individual, who was 20 years old at the time. Two other flights included two women -- whose names were redacted in follow-up emails — identified as potential witnesses in a Maxwell case.
Several additional Trump trips on Epstein’s plane had been previously disclosed during Maxwell’s criminal proceedings.
Asked for comment about the email, the White House pointed to a Justice Department statement saying Monday’s release contained “unfounded and false” claims against the president submitted to the FBI shortly before the 2020 election, but they were nevertheless being released for full transparency.
Later Tuesday, the department said on social media that the FBI had confirmed the purported Nassar letter “is FAKE” based on the handwriting, Virginia postmark and return address, which did not include Epstein's jail or inmate number, both required for outgoing mail.
“This fake letter serves as a reminder that just because a document is released by the Department of Justice does not make the allegations or claims within the document factual,” the department said in a post on X.
The latest release also showed that Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s southern Florida club, was served with a subpoena in 2021 for its employment records. The disclosure came as part of an email chain in which lawyers for the Southern District of New York and an attorney in touch with representatives for the Trump Organization discussed the employment status of someone whose name was redacted.
Trump complained that the files were a distraction from the work he and other Republicans are doing for the country.
Speaking during an unrelated event at his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Florida, on Monday, the president blamed Democrats and some Republicans for the controversy.
“What this whole thing is with Epstein is a way of trying to deflect from the tremendous success that the Republican Party has,” Trump said.
He also expressed frustration about the famous people shown with Epstein in photos released by the Justice Department — people who he said may not have known him but ended up in the shot anyway.
“You probably have pictures being exposed of other people that innocently met Jeffrey Epstein years ago, many years ago. And they’re, you know, highly respected bankers and lawyers and others,” Trump said.
Well-known people shown in the files include former President Bill Clinton, the late pop star Michael Jackson and singer Diana Ross. The mere inclusion of someone’s name or images in files from the investigation does not imply wrongdoing.
The latest release also includes files that put the U.K.'s former Prince Andrew back in the headlines.
Among those documents is correspondence between Maxwell and someone who signs off with the initial “A.”
The email exchange includes other references that suggest Maxwell’s correspondent may be Andrew. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The August 2001 email from someone identified only as “The Invisible Man,” said he is “up here at Balmoral Summer Camp for the Royal Family,” an apparent reference to the Scottish estate where the royal family has traditionally taken their late summer holidays.
“A” writes: “How’s LA? Have you found me some new inappropriate friends?”
The writer says he has left “the RN” and refers to the challenges of looking after “the Girls.” Andrew retired from the Royal Navy in 2001 and has two daughters.
Andrew, one of King Charles III’s younger brothers, was stripped of the right to be called a prince and his other royal titles and honors in October, amid continued publicity about his links to Epstein and concerns about the potential damage to the rest of the royal family. He is now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.
Andrew has repeatedly denied committing any crimes, including having sex with Virginia Giuffre, who alleged that she was trafficked by Epstein and had sex with Andrew when she was 17.
The documents also reveal months of sometimes testy negotiations as U.S. federal prosecutors tried but ultimately failed to secure Mountbatten-Windsor's testimony. Talks foundered amid complaints that each side had made misleading statements to the press and a seeming inability to bridge the differences between the U.S. and British legal systems.
Trump tried for months to keep the records sealed before relenting to political pressure, including from some fellow Republicans, though he eventually signed a bill mandating the release of most of the Justice Department’s files on Epstein.
Monday's overnight release was the biggest dump yet, including nearly 30,000 more pages.
It includes news clippings, varied tips to law enforcement and surveillance videos from the New York jail where Epstein was held before taking his own life in 2019. Much was already in the public domain.
The law called for the files to be released within 30 days, but the Justice Department has instead released them in stages starting Friday. Officials have said they’re going slowly to protect victims, though some women assaulted by Epstein have spoken out publicly to call for greater transparency.
And the administration is facing fierce accusations that it is withholding too much information. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said the tens of thousands of files released still left “more questions than answers.” He pointed to a 2019 FBI email that mentions 10 people under investigation as possible co-conspirators but contains few additional details.
Associated Press writer Darlene Superville in Washington and Danica Kirka in London contributed to this report.
An email that was included in the U.S. Department of Justice release of the Jeffrey Epstein files is photographed Monday, Dec. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick)
President Donald Trump arrives on Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport, Saturday, Dec. 20, 2025, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
