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Friday, Apr 3, 2026
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OC Insider: Bowl Winner

From 1899 to 2024, the Indiana Hoosiers football team won a total of three bowl games, while establishing its claim as the most downtrodden college football program in history.

The Hoosiers equaled that bowl win total in the past three weeks alone, capping off a Cinderella-like run to the national championship and turning their coach, Curt Cignetti, into a state hero.

Cignetti’s been focused on a different type of bowl since his hiring in Bloomington two years ago.

His secret sauce: a burrito bowl with rice, beans, chicken and a side of guacamole that runs 750 calories and costs $10.90 at Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE: CMG).

News reports noted during Indiana’s late-season run that Cignetti had been a creature of habit over the past two years, ordering the same meal from Newport Beach-based Chipotle for lunch some 500 times, missing only those lunches during road games.

“All of the town’s burrito bowl scoopers know Cignetti’s order,” noted a report in the Wall Street Journal.

“I don’t even have to say, like, ‘Make sure to take care of him with solid portions’,” said Jake McDonald, a team assistant who’s been tasked with picking up the order the past two years.

In the process, McDonald earned over 64,000 reward points at one point, enough for about 40 free meals.

“We appreciate Coach Cignetti’s fandom and applaud his assistant director of football operations for being among the top 1% of Chipotle Rewards members in the state of Indiana,” OC’s most valuable public company said in a statement.

Chipotle last week added Coach Cignetti’s “I Win” bowl to its menu for a limited time. He’s the first coach to get a menu item, the company said.

Aaron Rodgers may or may not have played his last NFL game, but the 42-year-old QB and co-founder of Irvine-based investment firm RX3 Growth Partners is still expected to see the field at the 2026 edition of RX3’s annual charity flag football tournament, which is being held on March 21.

Prior editions of the event have included a who’s who of NFL quarterbacks, several with prior ties to OC, including Seattle’s Sam Darnold, Buffalo’s Josh Allen and Charlotte’s Bryce Young, and former NFL and USC players Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart.

Last year’s edition of the event, held in Mission Viejo, raised $3.5 million for a variety of causes.

RX3 was created in 2018 by Rodgers, Nate Raabe and Byron Roth, namesake of Roth MKM, the largest investment bank headquartered in OC.

Josh Allen in 2023 paid a reported $7.2 million for an offseason home in the Monarch Bay area of Dana Point, but the perennial Pro Bowler appeared to have eyes outside OC following his May 2025 marriage to actress Hailee Steinfeld; the home was reportedly listed for sale shortly after the wedding, with an asking price of $8.5 million.

Change in plans? Reports earlier this month say the house was just taken off the market. Other QBs with homes in Monarch Bay include Sam Darnold and Mark Sanchez.

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Mark Mueller
Mark Mueller
Mark is the former Editor-in-Chief and current Community Editor of the Orange County Business Journal, one of the premier regional business newspapers in the country. He’s the fifth person to hold the editor’s position in the paper’s long history. He oversees a staff of about 15 people. The OCBJ is considered a must-read for area business executives. The print edition of the paper is the primary source of local news for most of the Business Journal’s subscribers, which includes most of OC’s major corporate and community players. Mark’s been with the paper since 2005, and long served as the real estate reporter for the paper, breaking hundreds of commercial and residential real estate stories. He took on the editor’s position in 2018.
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