Pat Knight stood in the shadow of Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall, the same arena where he once ran the court under his father’s watchful eye, and let the words spill out with a quiet ache that carried the weight of years. “Man, I wish my dad was still alive,” he said, his voice steady but laced with something raw. “He loved football. He absolutely loved it.”
Those words landed like a long bomb in the heart of Indiana sports fans. Pat Knight—former Hoosier basketball player from 1990 to 1995, one-time assistant coach to the legendary Bob Knight, and son of the man who defined intensity, discipline, and three national championships—rarely speaks in hypotheticals. But this moment was different. It came amid Indiana University’s football program achieving something once thought impossible: an undefeated season under head coach Curt Cignetti, barreling toward a national championship game against Miami that could etch the Hoosiers into history as the first modern-era team to go 16-0.
For Pat, the timing felt almost cruel. Bob Knight, the General himself, passed away on November 1, 2023. Just 29 days later, Cignetti arrived in Bloomington and began rebuilding a program that had spent decades in the wilderness. Bob never got to witness this resurgence. He never saw the Hoosiers dismantle opponents with precision and grit, never watched the defense swarm like his 1976 basketball squad once did on the way to perfection.
And yet, in Pat’s mind, his father would have been front and center, perched in the press box like old times, analyzing every snap with the same fierce attention he once gave to Bill Mallory’s teams in the 1980s and ’90s.
Bob Knight wasn’t just a basketball icon at Indiana. He was a football devotee through and through. During his 29-year tenure leading IU basketball from 1971 to 2000, he rarely missed a home football game. He’d sit high above the field, away from the crowds he famously distrusted, dissecting plays with the eye of a man who demanded perfection. Sundays during football season were sacred; practices wrapped early so Bob could settle in front of the television to watch his friend Bill Parcells and the New York Giants, or later the Dallas Cowboys.
Pat remembers those afternoons vividly—his dad, the stoic tactician, transformed into an animated fan, yelling at the screen over missed blocks or poor reads.
“He’d get so fired up,” Pat recalled in recent interviews. “Football was his escape, his passion outside the hardwood. Basketball was work. Football was love.”
That love ran deep. Bob maintained close friendships with football minds like Parcells and his brothers, treating them like family. He admired Bill Mallory, IU’s winningest football coach until recent years, for turning a perennial underdog into a bowl contender with victories over powerhouses like Michigan and Ohio State. Bob attended those games religiously, cheering quietly from his perch, proud when the Hoosiers punched above their weight. He knew the grind—the recruiting battles, the administrative headaches, the constant pressure in a basketball-mad state. Yet he rooted for IU football anyway, believing it could one day rise.
Pat sees echoes of his father’s style in Cignetti’s approach. Both men are relentless, old-school in their demand for improvement, unafraid to hold players accountable. Cignetti’s teams play with discipline and toughness, much like Bob’s motion offense and man-to-man defense emphasized fundamentals over flash. Pat imagines his dad offering that trademark firm handshake to Cignetti after a game, a rare compliment delivered with a smirk: “Hell of a job, Coach. Keep pounding.”
The parallels extend further. Bob’s 1976 Indiana basketball team went undefeated en route to a national title, a feat of dominance that still stands as one of college sports’ gold standards. Now, Cignetti has positioned the football Hoosiers for something similar—a perfect season in the expanded playoff era, where every game carries national stakes. Pat can’t help but wonder what Bob would say about the tackling he’s seen this year, sharper than some NFL units. Or how NIL has leveled the playing field, allowing a program like Indiana to compete with the blue-bloods in ways unimaginable a generation ago.
But beneath the admiration lies a poignant absence. Bob Knight died before he could see his beloved Hoosiers football reclaim glory. Pat, who played under his dad, assisted him at IU and later Texas Tech, and carried the family name through his own coaching stops at Lamar and now Marian University, feels that void acutely. He still scouts for the Indiana Pacers, still returns to Bloomington for exhibitions and memories, still kisses the center-court logo in tribute. Yet on days like these, when the football team surges toward history, the what-ifs hit hardest.
“Man, I wish my dad was still alive,” Pat said again, almost to himself. He pictured Bob in the stands, that proud glint in his eye, analyzing, critiquing, celebrating. Football was Bob’s thing, his quiet obsession. And in this moment of triumph for Indiana, Pat knows his father would have been absolutely jacked—grinning that rare, satisfied grin, ready to tell anyone who listened that the Hoosiers were finally doing it right.
The national title game looms on Monday. Win or lose, the season has already rewritten expectations. For Pat Knight, though, it’s more than wins and losses. It’s a reminder of a father’s passion, a legacy that stretched beyond basketball, and a wish that the man who loved football most could have seen it all unfold.
