Bryant Haines, of Piqua, leading Indiana Hoosiers defense in historic season

A little over 17 years ago, the Dayton Daily News asked 2004 Piqua High School graduate Bryant Haines, then a senior linebacker at Ball State, “What makes you tick?”

“I’m happy-go-lucky,” Haines said. “I like to hang with my friends. I’m a jokester, but not on the field. My team needs me to be a leader. I’m a student of the game. I like to watch it, and I plan to coach it someday. I take football very seriously, I actually enjoy watching film.”

Those quotes foreshadowed Haines’ coaching career but not the heights he has reached in the last two seasons as the defensive coordinator for the Indiana Hoosiers. No one predicted IU’s rise, except maybe its now famous head coach, Curt Cignetti.

Cignetti, Haines and the Hoosiers will try to write a memorable final chapter for one of college football’s great stories Monday when they play the Miami Hurricanes in the College Football Playoff championship game at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Fla.

Plenty of people in Piqua, including his former coach Bill Nees, who still leads the program, will be rooting for Haines.

“We’re usually just fans of Piqua,” Nees said. “But, yes, we are definitely Indiana fans. I received numerous Indiana pullovers and stuff like that for Christmas.”

The 6-foot-5 Haines played wide receiver and safety for Piqua. He had seven catches for 131 yards and four touchdowns in one game against Vandalia Butler as a senior in 2003.

Ball State coaches attended that game. That’s how Haines ended up with a scholarship offer from the Mid-American Conference school in Muncie, Ind. Even then, Nees saw a future coach in Haines.

“He was a student of the game,” Nees said. “He always wanted to know what was going on. He played safety in our defense, and that position pretty much directs the whole defense. As tall as he was, he’d sit back there and run the show and have great reasons for everything he did.”

Credit: Jim Witmer

Credit: Jim Witmer

Credit: HANDOUT

Credit: handout

I talked to Piqua football coach Bill Nees on Monday for a story running Sunday. One of his former players, Bryant Haines, is the defensive coordinator at Indiana. We had some good coverage of Haines when he played for Piqua and Ball State. pic.twitter.com/34YAlZbw3U
— David Jablonski (@DavidPJablonski) January 15, 2026

Haines caught 35 passes for 700 yards and eight touchdowns in his final season at Piqua. At Ball State, he moved to linebacker and, after redshirting as a freshman in 2004, was a four-year letter-winner. He made the All-MAC third team as a fifth-year senior in 2008.

Haines started his coaching career as a defensive line coach at Manchester University in Indiana in 2009. He then spent two seasons at Adrian College before landing at Indiana as a graduate assistant in the 2012 season.

In 2013, Haines worked with linebackers at Ohio State as a grad assistant. In 2014, he took a job as the defensive line and strength and conditioning coach at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where Cignetti was in his fourth season as head coach.

Haines didn’t have an easy life then. In December, he told Sports Illustrated he had to ask his parents, Randy and Michele Haines, for money after his second season at IUP in 2015.

“That was a low point for me,” Haines said. “And to me, that’s when I really had to feel like that was a decision time. You have to ask your parents for money — maybe you should stop what you’re doing, you’re not good at it.”

Haynes thought about quitting coaching.

“There were times, like, I could go work for one of my buddies and make money,” Haines told Sports Illustrated. “But I was passionate about football. It’s what I love, so I stuck it out.”

Haines spent two seasons on Cignetti’s staff before moving to the University of California, Davis as linebackers coach in the 2016 season.

In 2017, Haines reunited with Cignetti, who had taken the head coaching job at Elon University. Haines coached linebackers at Elon for two seasons and then followed Cignetti to James Madison in 2019.

Haines was the co-defensive coordinator and linebackers coach for three seasons before earning a promotion to defensive coordinator in 2022. James Madison finished 8-3 that season and then 11-1 the next season.

The success led Cignetti to Indiana in 2024, and once again, Haines followed him, retaining his defensive coordinator role. Less than a decade after asking his parents for financial help, he became the highest-paid assistant coach in IU football history, making $1.1 million in his first season.

Indiana finished 11-2 last season and takes a 15-0 record into the final game Monday.

“It was pretty cool last year when they got off to a great start,” Nees said. “Those guys, everywhere that group has gone, they’ve been winning. I sent him a text and said, ‘How are you guys playing so hard?’ It just seemed like they had a good connection with getting people to play hard and not get penalties. They’re a real aggressive team. That first year they had really good success, and that attracted even more talent. It’s been a pleasure to see. We enjoy watching them play their brand of football.”

Indiana beat Ohio State in the Big Ten championship game and then Alabama and Oregon in the playoffs. Haines’ defense has forced at least one turnover in seven straight games and has forced multiple turnovers in 10 games.

Indiana’s defense ranks second in the nation in scoring defense (11.1 points per game) and fourth in total defense (260.9 yards per game).

One opposing coach spoke anonymously to The Athletic in December about what makes Haines so effective.

“Their scheme, man, it’s so tough,” he said. “They had us in a blender. They’re very multiple. They’re so good with fire zones, simulated pressures, do a good job of fitting the run, and Haines does such a great job of breaking his own tendencies. He does some stuff that is like NFL complicated. He does a great job of understanding what he’s put on film, and having a good feel for how you’re going to attack that so he can lay a trap and watch you walk right into it.”

Asked about his ability to avoid tendencies after their last game, a 56-22 victory against Oregon in the Peach Bowl, Haines said, “I think that’s my own chaotic mind. I spend a lot of time chasing my own ghosts. I want to avoid who I was last week. I spent a lot of time with that. Now I do have quality control coaches in charge of my call sheet, and I feel bad for the guys, because I don’t know how many times I put down a call that I use, and I’m like, ‘No, I don’t want to do it that way. I want to do it a different way.’ So we use a lot of white-out, but I want to break my own tendencies. I want to be an elusive target in the same way I want my defense to be elusive.”