Curt Cignetti and The Unconventional Path from The Nick Saban Network to Indiana

Part of the illustrious Nick Saban tree, Curt Cignetti took an unusual route that stands out among the most noteworthy of all Alabama Crimson Tide coaching alumni.

Winning football games at Indiana isn’t easy; any casual observer can tell you as much. When Curt Cignetti was introduced as Hoosiers head coach last November, though, he came with the rare credentials of having won at Indiana before.

Of course, I’m referring to Div. II Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

The dad-joke serendipity of Cignetti having coached two different Indiana programs aside, the first-year Hoosiers head man having spent six seasons at IUP is an interesting tidbit in his career arc. When Cignetti took over at the Div. II program, it marked the first head-coaching post in his nearly 30 years in the profession.

What’s more, Cignetti jumped to IUP from coaching wide receivers and working as recruiting coordinator at Alabama. Working as an assistant under Nick Saban was typically a guaranteed gateway to a power-conference head-coaching job or heading up a prominent Group of Five program, which would lead to a power-league post in short order.

Consider Cignetti’s colleagues in his final season in Tuscaloosa, 2010. Offensive coordinator Jim McElwain went to Colorado State, which he parlayed into the Florida gig. Defensive backs coach Jeremy Pruitt’s first head position was at Tennessee in 2018 following two tenures with Saban.

Defensive coordinator Kirby Smart went to Georgia and established himself as the heir apparent to Saban’s throne atop the sport.

And that’s only the staff in 2010. In the years that followed, Alabama became to head coaching what Johns Hopkins is to medicine or Syracuse is to sports broadcasting. A not-uncommon joke centered around Saban’s uncanny ability to rehabilitate previously unsuccessful head coaches, most notably Lane Kiffin at FAU and now Ole Miss; and Steve Sarkisian at Texas.

Even in Saban’s retirment it continues with Bill O’Brien’s¹ Boston College team exceeding all expectations three games into the 2021-22 Crimson Tide offensive coordinator’s tenure.

With the exception of Kiffin leaving Tuscaloosa for FAU, all these examples parlayed their time with the Crimson Tide into high-profile head-coaching gigs. And even FAU was a markedly higher-profile opportunity for Kiffin than Cignetti going the Div. II route.

However, Curt Cignetti followed a family legacy with his departure from Alabama, taking over an IUP program that his father, Frank Cignetti Sr., headed up for 20 years.

Under Frank Cignetti, the Crimson Hawks went to 13 NCAA Div. II Playoffs and twice reached the National Championship Game. He coached the only three Harlon Hill Trophy finalists in IUP history: Jai Hill, Tony Aliucci and Michael Mann.

After Cignetti’s retirement in 2005, IUP football trailed off in the next four years, including a 1-6 conference finish in 2009. Cignetti arrived in 2011 with designs on restoring the program’s glory. He explained in a Q&A with the Tuscaloosa News:

“It's not like we're walking into a championship program — right now we're not. That could change with a couple of key players, because we're not that far off. We probably have the best sell in the conference, with 15,800 students, the best academics, five or six brand new dorms, we've got good facilities. It's just a matter of doing a good job bringing the right people in here, getting a little better every day and working to improve.”

Cignetti’s tenure at IUP mirrored Saban’s at Alabama in that both turned things around in short order, assembling title-contending teams by Year 2. After an improvement to 7-3 in Cignetti’s first year at IUP, 2011, the 2012 Crimson Hawks finished 12-2 and reached the Div. II quarterfinals.

Each of Cignetti’s IUP teams finished better than .500 and four of the six won nine-plus games; his last Crimson Hawk bunch in 2016 went 10-2.

When I asked Cignetti about being part of the Saban coaching network in 2019, he said: “We all learned and came from the same tree, so to speak. I'm sure we all run our programs fairly similarly.”

While their are likely similarities among the assorted former Saban colleagues, the differences are apparent as far as their respective results.

With the exception of Kirby Smart, Cignetti’s first stint post-Alabama lasted the longest and produced the most consistent results. Certainly winning at Georgia and winning at IUP does not make for an apples-to-apples comparison, but in those differences are qualities that make Cignetti’s journey to the Big Ten all the more remarkable.

Consider how difficult running a Div. II program with an approach taking inspiration from a football powerhouse flush with resources would be to implement. It’s not feasible given the requirements specific to each.

I think of what Kalen DeBoer, coincidentally head coach now at Alabama, said to me in 2023 about overseeing a lower-division program.

“You're the equipment manager, you’re admissions, you're all these different jobs and wear all these different hats,” he said. “And I think you understand all the work that it takes and so you have an appreciation for the people in your organization.”

I also think of what Craig Stutzmann, the offensive coordinator at San Jose State and a key figure in Texas State’s breakout 2023, said of coaching with Curt Newsome at then-Div. III Emory & Henry.

“I could tell in 30 minutes [of his first telephone conversation with Newsome] it was going to be a great fit," Stutzmann said. "The thing he sold me on, when we first talked on the phone, was he said, 'I'm a Div. I football coach. I'm going to run it like a Div. I program.'"

The combination of these two perspectives underscores why coaches like DeBoer and Cignetti may be blazing new trails. There’s a unique skill in striking that balance between understanding what goes into every position while operating with the specialized nature of a big-time institution.

Cignetti most successfully found this balance at James Madison. JMU was a well-established FCS power when it hired Cignetti away from Coastal Athletic Association counterpart Elon, where the coach guided the Phoenix to their first-ever FCS Playoffs appearance in his first year.

The Dukes were just two years removed from playing in a second consecutive National Championship Game, having won in their first trip to Frisco in the 2016 season.

But Cignetti’s approach readied James Madison to make the jump to FBS competition, and do so at an immediately Top 25 level.

Fourteen years removed from his last season at Alabama, Cignetti made the transition over to a power-conference program when he accepted the vacancy at Indiana. I’ll admit, this announcement raised my eyebrows at the time.

Indiana — the Bloomington version — hasn’t exactly been a place where head coaches thrive at any point in the last 50’ish years. To wit, the Hoosiers’ visit to UCLA in Week 3 marked Indiana’s first trip to Rose Bowl Stadium since January 1968. That was the last time IU won the conference.

Trying to jump-start a moribund program at an especially challenging time in its history, with USC, Oregon and Washington all joining the same conference, seems especially risky. But it fits the unconventional path Cignetti followed to reach this point.

Likewise, the Hoosiers appear headed on the same trajectory as Cignetti’s other head-coaching stops, prepared to deliver immediate results. Its blowout of UCLA improved IU to 3-0. And while none of the wins came against the strongest competition, the schedule sets up nicely for the Hoosiers to be 6-0 when they face Nebraska in Bloomington on Oct. 19.

Should the Cornhuskers still be in the Top 25 by then — and the schedule plays out favorably to suggest that’ll be the case — Indiana could have its version of the 2008 Alabama-Georgia showdown.

Cignetti was on the Crimson Tide staff when, on Sept. 27 that season, Alabama rolled into Athens to face the third-ranked Bulldogs. The ensuing masterclass from the Tide established that the SEC was about to run through Tuscaloosa for the foreseeable future.

An interesting element to this era of Alabama football and germane to Curt Cignetti’s career is that the program hadn’t yet developed into the recruiting juggernaut for which Saban’s program was exalted.

Yes, the Crimson Tide topped Rivals’ team rankings in 2008 for total points, but their average star rating score (3.72) trailed Florida, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Oklahoma and USC.

USC, Texas and Florida all outscored Alabama in average star score in 2009. In 2010, the Tide’s 3.62 average score was well below the 4.17 USC recruits averaged.

Programs need talent to win, and the Crimson Tide weren’t exactly struggling in Cignetti’s time as recruiting coordinator. In a college football landscape where shouting STARS MATTER somehow trumps all context or nuance, though, how ironic is it for the program most associated with the STARS MATTER mentality began from a foundation of out-performing its ratings?

Barrett Jones, an All-American linchpin for the 2011 and 2012 national championship teams, explained in his interview with Crimson Chronicles:

With his first Indiana team, Cignetti’s taken a new spin on this approach by building around players originally recruited at Group of Five and FCS programs. Running back Kaelon Black and Ty Son Lawton both came with this staff from James Madison, and Lawton began his college career at Stony Brook.

Wide receiver Elijah Sarratt followed a similar path, transferring to JMU from Saint Francis. Saint Francis plays in the Northeast Conference, a lower-tier FCS league. Quarterback Kurtis Rourke’s leap was perhaps not as steep; he was the Mid-American Conference Offensive Player of the Year at Ohio University, and the MAC has a long-established track record of more than holding its own against power-conference competition.

Of all the former Saban assistants embarking on their own path, I find Curt Cignetti’s the most fascinating because it’s the most unique. Should he build a winner from perennial loser Indiana, Cignetti will also separate himself as one of the network’s biggest success stories.

1. O’Brien’s arc differs from former Alabama assistant counterparts like Kiffin or Sarkisian in that O’Brien actually flourished in his last collegiate head-coaching job, Penn State. Before landing with Saban, however, O’Brien’s time with the NFL’s Houston Texans ended with a thud.