Indiana football coaching search nearing end. And one candidate is picking up heavy steam.

BREAKING: The search is over. IU is finalizing a deal with James Madison's Curt Cignetti.

BLOOMINGTON – Barring something unforeseen, there’s a real chance this will be our last hot board of the search.

Indiana set out to find its next football coach within a matter of days, Athletic Director Scott Dolson wanting to make sure that person was installed in plenty of time to prepare for the opening of the winter transfer window next week.

The Hoosiers are ready to arm their next coach with substantial NIL resources. They have a host of their own players declared for the portal that coach will need to evaluate and, in some case, recruit to stick around.

And after Dolson and IU President Pam Whitten cast a wide net in search for Tom Allen’s replacement, at time of writing Wednesday night, they appear to be zeroing in on one.

A few things:

First, you’ll notice this board is smaller than previous iterations. The candidate list has clearly been narrowed down. Second, there will only be two groupings, potential finalists and others we’re confident were spoken to or received some measure of an interview.

And last, we won’t make a final prediction tonight, though it probably won’t be difficult to figure out where we think this is going as of let’s say, 8:45 p.m. Eastern.

Without further introduction:

Potential finalists

Three names have bubbled up above the rest of the field as this week has worn on. Will Indiana have conducted extensive sitdown interviews with all three? Perhaps, or perhaps that’s where search firm TurnkeyZRG might have aided in the final winnowing down. In any event, these are the three names that likely got the most attention.

Here, for the first time, we’ll rank candidates in order of likelihood based on our reporting, rather than alphabetical order.

Curt Cignetti, head coach, James Madison

Successful wherever he’s been, across head-coaching stops at Indiana (Pa.), Elon and JMU, Cignetti wasn’t in our field when the search first started. There were elements of his profile that fit IU’s apparent focus, but others that didn’t. In particular, it seemed like Cignetti might be more likely for an East Coast job like Syracuse or Duke, once it came open.

Nevertheless, he’s risen quickly up the board, a reminder coaching searches are always alive until they aren’t anymore.

Cignetti turned every school he’s coached into a winner, perhaps most notably Elon, where he took one of the more difficult Football Championship Subdivision jobs to back-to-back playoff appearances before moving to James Madison. He’s never had a bad season leading the Dukes, who advanced at least as far as the FCS semifinal in all three of his seasons in Harrisonburg. Since bringing JMU to the FBS level, Cignetti has gone 19-4, and 13-3 in the Sun Belt.

The Dukes won’t bowl this year unless there are spots left unfilled in the field, after the NCAA declined to grant them special dispensation in waiving FCS-to-FBS transition rules. But there’s no arguing, whatever his stops, with Cignetti’s 119-35 record across 13 seasons as a head coach.

Football Scoop reported Indiana’s intensifying interest in Cignetti on Wednesday night. If you’re into this sort of thing, a private plane belonging to a prominent IU booster made multiple trips to Harrisonburg on Wednesday, though in fairness that could mean any number of things.

Whatever the case, Cignetti has gathering support around Indiana, and it appears very possible he is the Hoosiers’ top choice.

Jason Candle, head coach, Toledo

Candle’s candidacy has persisted through this search without taking on much more shape than simply that.

Extremely successful during his time in charge at Toledo, Candle has the sort of resume from the MAC level that should be ready for a Big Ten (or at least Power Four) jump soon. He’ll play for his third conference championship Saturday in Detroit, the Rockets a comfortably favorite over Miami (Ohio).

In a way, it’s possible that could have become a bit of a hang-up in Indiana’s interest. The cold reality of college football right now is that the winter portal — especially for a first-year head coach — is a can’t-miss opportunity to tackle wide-scale roster building right away. Programs like this one sometimes can’t afford to wait too long for a coach, unless they are absolutely convinced he’s the one and the potential for short-term damage from waiting to confirm will, in their confidence, be clearly mitigated by the payoff of the delay.

Yes, there’s always an extent to which you should be worried about the next five years more than the next five weeks. But particularly with stepped-up NIL commitment, and a roster in dire need of some fast patching, IU would need to be absolutely sure waiting for Candle was the right move, because you’re not going to announce something like this before a game like the one Candle has coming this weekend.

And before you shout this down, know there are plenty of significant examples of hiring decisions that factored something like this in. Whether it mattered here is absolutely speculation on our part. And Candle’s name has persisted in this search regardless of his December commitments. It’s just worth remembering, and perhaps noting given timelines.

If the search does stretch beyond the weekend, Candle might become a more realistic candidate if for no reason other than scheduling.

Paul Chryst, former head coach, Pitt/Wisconsin

Chryst might have been our clubhouse leader early in the search. He ticked a lot of Dolson’s boxes — significant head-coaching experience, a track record of success, a working knowledge of the Big Ten — and after a year out of the big chair following his dismissal in 2022, Chryst was reportedly interested in finding his way back in.

There would/will of course be questions to answer about the way things ended in Madison, Chryst’s teams struggling on offense, recruiting waning and the Badgers beginning to slip from competitiveness in a Big Ten West they once more or less ran. But there were also impressive records in bowl games (7-2 across both stops) and in Wisconsin’s primary rivalry games, Iowa and Minnesota (10-4).

For a fairly extended period of time — as extended as can be in a search that’s only been live since Sunday morning — Chryst seemed as good of a bet as any candidate. He was connected to both the Northwestern and Oregon State openings before they were filled, and Indiana seems like a job that would fit his profile.

Still, that unquestionably seemed to wane Wednesday. Whether others moved themselves ahead or Chryst backed off (or our intelligence was wrong altogether), the air came out of this balloon a bit. Chryst still seems like he’s funneled through the search to land somewhere in IU’s thinking late in the day, but perhaps not where we saw him at one time.

The rest of the field

This will be our only other grouping. It’s not large, but it contains a mix of names we’re comfortable saying have spoken with Indiana in some capacity and/or have serious enough ties to the program to list them here.

Rod Carey, offensive coordinator, Indiana

This won’t have been purely a courtesy chat. Carey has the pretty extensive success at Northern Illinois on his CV. He’s passionate about his alma mater, liked within the department and, to his credit, riding the good work he did turning IU’s offense into a more competitive outfit with very little prep time, having been elevated midseason.

Whatever the final resolution of his time back in Bloomington — and it’s worth saying, if he’s not offered the job but he’s interested in sticking around, his resume might be appealing to whomever is — Carey should receive Indiana’s gratitude and respect. He weathered a difficult time for the football side of the NEZ, taking on whatever role was needed across a couple of turbulent seasons ultimately culminating in a coaching change. He was there when asked, and fought the good fight for his school, something we suspect won’t be forgotten when the dust settles, whenever and wherever it does.

Justin Frye, associate head coach for offense/offensive line coach, Ohio State

Frye was expected to at least get a conversation during this search, and his passion for the position is understandable. He was an excellent offensive lineman at Indiana across a four-year career from 2002-06.

Perhaps the biggest knock against Frye is his lack of head-coaching experience. But he does have years, plural, spent working under Chip Kelly at UCLA, and then Ryan Day at Ohio State. At some point, Frye should at least get a shot to run his own offense, after learning under two widely respected offensive minds.

If we presume for a moment — and assumptions are always dangerous in a coaching search — the head offer lands elsewhere, it would be interesting to see if IU’s new coach follows up with interest in Frye as a member of his staff. It seems like a safe bet that he’ll want the chance to call plays someday, and running the show on offense for his alma mater might appeal to him.

Mike Hart, run game coordinator/running backs coach, Michigan

When Hart departed Bloomington in 2021 for his alma mater, he left a distinctly positive impression on department decision-makers behind him. That reputation only grew in Ann Arbor, where the Michigan legend produced record-setting running backs and handled his position so well there are serious people up north who think Hart might lead the Wolverines someday.

There were strong indications Hart engaged to some extent with Indiana. Like Frye, the lack of head-coaching experience might have been a drawback he couldn’t overcome. But if Hart did discuss the job with IU officials in any meaningful capacity, it won’t have been purely a courtesy. Don’t be surprised to see Mike Hart in a head chair at some point.

Tom Herman, head coach, Florida Atlantic

Herman is the wildcard in this group. We did sort these four alphabetically, because their involvement in the search is less clear-cut than the tier above.

Few mentioned in connection with Indiana split opinion like Herman, who was outstanding during his rise from Broyles Award winner, to Houston head coach, to top of the food chain at Texas. Yet he never quite got things going in Austin, and whatever the circumstances found himself dragged into the messy Zach Smith affair.

Herman spent a few years out of head-coaching before dipping back in at FAU, where he went 4-8 this fall in his first year. His would have to be a hiring based and sold on his earlier success, including a 5-0 record in bowl games he coached, and top-10 finishes at both Houston and Texas.

It’s been suggested in some quarters Indiana spoke with Herman, something we’ve heard but not confirmed. Frantic attempts to track planes to Boca Raton aside, it’s never felt like this took on solid form, yet in a way Herman seemed to straddle the line between that first group and this one for a while. He probably fits comfortably down here now, though.

Follow IndyStar reporter Zach Osterman on Twitter: @ZachOsterman.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IU football coaching search: Curt Cignetti among leaders for head job