BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — 4 phrases got here to Curt Cignetti’s thoughts as he attempted to practice alongside from 800 miles away the trail of a twister that was once latter in on his youngest kid.
“What have I done?”
It was once April 27, 2011. Cignetti was once at a serve as at Indiana College of Pennsylvania (IUP), the place he had not too long ago began as head soccer tutor, taking a 60 % pay trim from the $250,000 he was once making on Nick Saban’s body of workers at Alabama. His crowd was once nonetheless again in Tuscaloosa completing out the college yr. Son Curtis was once an Alabama scholar and was once bunkering indisposed on campus because the twister — which might finally end up killing 64 crowd, six of them college scholars — handed within sight.
Cignetti’s spouse, Manette, was once 3 and a part hours south in Cellular for daughter Carly’s highschool shape tennis event. That left the youngest, daughter Natalie, at a pal’s area in a local that was once about to be strike without delay. Manette were given Natalie at the telephone and screamed at her to jerk barricade. She and her good friend’s crowd did, within the basement, below a desk, as the home was once moved off its substructure — a couple of hundred yards from a area that was once totally obliterated.
“You’re just sick to your stomach, you’re helpless,” Manette mentioned. “Meanwhile, Curt has to be present at this event and is just about having a heart attack trying to figure out what’s going on.”
The Cignettis have been preserve and shortly reunited. However the scare was once simply the untouched recommended for the ones 4 phrases: “What have I done?”
A tutor coming near 50 doesn’t reduce a role as a recruiting coordinator and receivers tutor at some of the supremacy systems within the recreation to enter the a suffering Category II outfit. That’s a well-dressed detour from a gradual climb in a tricky trade, because the pay trim suggests. Manette unwanted the theory out of hand.
However Cignetti all the time sought after to be a head tutor, like his father, and believed he may just win at IUP, like his father. He took the doubtful soar. And the ones early doubts, intensified through the belief that IUP’s soccer assets had long past backward over a long time, quickly gave technique to validation.
As Cignetti’s Indiana Hoosiers get ready to host Nebraska at sold-out Memorial Stadium on Saturday, in this system’s greatest recreation in years, he sits at 160 video games coached. He has gained 125 of them. When he was once presented as IU’s tutor in December, later a success stints at James Madison, Elon and IUP, 4 phrases got here to thoughts later a query in regards to the problem of succeeding at traditionally hapless Indiana.
“I win. Google me,” Cignetti mentioned.
To this point, that’s all he’s finished.
Cignetti’s groups in most cases win as a result of he in most cases outperforms the tutor at the alternative sideline. For as blunt and assured as he will also be, he gained’t say it fairly like that. However those that have open him do his paintings will.
“He and his coaches give you all the answers, so you just know you’re going to win on game day,” mentioned Todd Centeio, a quarterback who transferred from Colorado Atmosphere to James Madison for his ultimate yr of eligibility in 2022 and gained Solar Belt Offensive Participant of the Generation.
“I don’t know how he does it, I just know that I trust it,” mentioned Indiana tight finish Zach Horton, certainly one of a number of well-known Hoosiers who adopted Cignetti from James Madison.
“Just highly intelligent and raised in the game,” mentioned Duke tutor Manny Diaz, who labored with Cignetti at NC Atmosphere.
“He has an absolutely incredible football mind,” mentioned Jeff Bourne, the athletic director who leased Cignetti to James Madison from Elon, and whose resignation preceded Cignetti’s exit to IU. “Watching his scouting of an opponent and preparation of a game plan was just really remarkable. You’d go into some games feeling like, ‘Well, I’m not sure about this one,’ and then we’d win and you’d realize how much it had to do with the preparation of the coaching staff. The way he analyzes opponents and finds ways to beat them, I saw it so many times and it was absolutely amazing.”
He noticed it from the alternative facet on Oct. 6, 2018, when Cignetti’s Elon Phoenix got here to Harrisonburg, Va., as immense underdogs towards FCS Incorrect. 2-ranked James Madison and pulled a 27-24 shocker. A few months upcoming, JMU tutor Mike Houston was once off to East Carolina and Cignetti was once Bourne’s selection to exchange him and top JMU’s a success transition to the FBS.
Indiana is 6-0 and outscoring fighters through 32.7 issues consistent with recreation. (James Twilight / Icon Sportswire by means of Getty Photographs)
Elon went a minute 14-9 in Cignetti’s two seasons there — however that was once a turnaround from 12-45 within the earlier 5 seasons. Cignetti’s system has labored all over, and it begins with an seeing for the sport and a willingness to usefulness each visible till the lids get bulky to search out an edge.
“He’s always in his office, always watching film,” mentioned Indiana linebacker Aiden Fisher, some other JMU switch making an instantaneous scatter with the Hoosiers.
Cignetti mentioned the movie projector is on “98 percent of the time” when he’s in that place of business. Nearest he is going house to the teal recliner that has survived all 35 years of the Cignettis’ marriage.
“All he does is sit in his chair and work,” Manette mentioned.
That’s a part of the system. So is frank, fair communicate, which Cignetti has discovered works with recruits and avid gamers homogeneous. That’s the place his past due father, Frank Cignetti Sr., is obvious in his training taste.
“He was a great man, a great leader, an up-front guy,” Cignetti mentioned of his father, who gave up the ghost in 2022 at date 84. “He’d always tell you what was on his mind. You may not like it, but he would tell you. Usually, to be your best, you’ve got to hear things you don’t like sometimes.”
Frank Sr. grew up in Pittsburgh, his oldsters having moved from Italy, his father a coal miner.
“Everyone was a coal miner or in the steel mill, that’s what everyone did where I was from,” mentioned Cignetti, the oldest of 4 children of Frank Sr. and Marlene. “Athletics was the way out.”
Frank Sr. was once an NAIA All-The us finish at IUP, and his training profession wound from the highschool ranks to West Virginia, the place Bobby Bowden leased him to tutor the offensive backfield in 1970. When Bowden left for Florida Atmosphere in 1976, Frank Sr. succeeded him as head tutor.
In 1978, Frank Sr. leased a tender West Virginia local named Nick Saban to tutor defensive backs. He additionally battled a unprecedented mode of most cancers, had his spleen got rid of, was once given chemotherapy and extreme rites two times, and in the long run survived. In 1979, he welcomed his eldest son as a quarterback at the group and was once fired later the season with a 17-27 file in 4 years.
“Let’s face it, I’ve got a little chip on my shoulder and some of it is that I had to go to IUP to be a head coach, that I’ve been underestimated my whole life,” Cignetti mentioned. “But the Cignetti name drives me too.”
Cignetti stayed as a supplementary at West Virginia for his ultimate 3 seasons of eligibility below Don Nehlen, who he mentioned “was great to me,” and after his training profession were given going as Frank Sr. discovered his candy spot. Upcoming a number of years as athletic director at IUP, he took over head training tasks in 1986 and had an amazing 20-year run — 182-50-1 with a number of deep Category II playoff runs, two to the championship recreation.
Frank Jr. performed for his father at IUP and launched into a training profession that has incorporated a number of NFL stops and two stints at native land college Pittsburgh. Curt began at Pitt as a grad worker in 1983 and after coached quarterbacks and tight ends there within the Nineties for Johnny Majors and Walt Harris. Manette, who met Curt in her native land of Indiana, Pa., month in pharmacy college, shared in supporting their younger crowd as a pharmacist.
Pitt is the place Cignetti’s recruiting talents — analysis and constant pursuit — were given him his first recruiting coordinator gig. He carried that to Chuck Amato’s body of workers at NC Atmosphere and in addition coached Philip Rivers there.
“Cig is just one of those coaches that checks every box and you could see all of it back then,” mentioned Noel Mazzone, who labored with Cignetti as Amato’s offensive coordinator in 2003 and 2004.
The Saban connection got here again round when he left the Miami Dolphins for the Alabama task in early 2007. Saban had stayed involved with Cignetti through the years and now sought after him to coordinate recruiting and tutor receivers for the Pink Flow. That supposed interests equivalent to eventual Heisman winner Mark Ingram, training avid gamers like Julio Jones and successful a countrywide championship.
“My experience with coach Saban, I can’t even begin to tell you, like, even just after a year with him, how much I learned about running an organization,” Cignetti mentioned. “From A to Z. Every day was like a doctoral class. It was so structured, so organized. He had a philosophy on everything. Everything was just airtight. I learned a ton.”
Something he realized: Saban favored to seem out of doors to fill coordinator openings, equivalent to when he leased Jim McElwain from Fresno Atmosphere to be OC in 2008. Upcoming 4 seasons, along with his fiftieth birthday coming near, Cignetti was once feeling the urgency.
“I really didn’t want to be another 58-year-old assistant coach bouncing around looking for another job, you know what I mean?” he mentioned. “I’d seen those guys. I’d grown up in the business, I’d followed careers and I didn’t want to be in that situation eight to 10 years from then. I wasn’t a coordinator and I felt like to that point I was always the next guy. I’d been passed over. But I always felt like I could be a good head coach. I wasn’t not going to be a head coach.”
IUP referred to as in December 2010.
“I said, ‘No, you can’t take it,’” Manette mentioned. “I just wasn’t going backward.”
Cignetti became it indisposed. That was once that. With the exception of weeks upcoming, the task nonetheless wasn’t crammed. Cignetti were given some other name.
“He looks at me and says, ‘I just really want to be a head coach,’” Manette mentioned. “What am I gonna do? Keep him from his dream? He gave me that look and it was, ‘Oh crap. OK. OK. Let’s go. Let’s do it.’”
It was once a far more uncomplicated determination when Indiana got here calling later extreme season later James Madison completed 11-1 to deliver Cignetti’s five-year file there to 52-9.
The Indiana of Pennsylvania exit supposed Manette resuming paintings as a pharmacist, in journey of each daughters following up faculty with scientific college — each are medical doctors now — month Curtis were given into scientific gross sales. He and his spouse, Amy, have equipped the Cignettis with their first two grandkids, Sophia and Isabelle.
Indiana soccer is a crowd affair for the Cignettis. (Courtesy of Manette Cignetti)
The Indiana of Bloomington exit supposed Cignetti’s wage multiplied through just about seven occasions — from $677,000 extreme yr at James Madison to $4.25 million consistent with yr at IU sooner than bonuses. He’s a 63-year-old tutor who hasn’t ever been a coordinator for a power-conference college and has simply two FBS head training seasons below his belt. And he was once the straightforward, cloudless Incorrect. 1 selection for Indiana athletic director Scott Dolson.
“From the first time we talked, it was, ‘This guy is just different,’” Dolson mentioned. “People don’t believe me, but I don’t think he’s cocky. He’s really not. He just tells you exactly how he feels.”
That supposed frank conversations about administrative backup right through the interview procedure and a sense later speaking to IU President Pamela Whitten that it was once robust. Cignetti already knew the Obese Ten’s media rights offers would lengthen IU’s assets edge over maximum athletic areas in years yet to come. And {that a} hapless soccer program isn’t an possibility for any establishment that desires to stick in that community.
Dolson is aware of that, too, which is why his area introduced a find out about to support direct the revival of Indiana soccer month Tom Allen was once nonetheless the tutor. The focal point was once on “like schools,” Dolson mentioned, that had discovered soccer good fortune. Put otherwise, basketball faculties: Kentucky, Kansas, Duke and North Carolina.
There are main variations amongst that crew, however all have discovered various measures of good fortune with just right training hires. Regardless that Kansas is suffering this season, Lance Leipold has given this system power and suits the profile of an used tutor who labored his manner up at abase ranges. The “do-everything” nature of the ones jobs will also be a bonus, as Dolson seen this season when Cignetti had a complete move plan able early in journey of a win at UCLA.
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The find out about produced a number of characteristics of a really perfect tutor, together with any individual who was once lately a head tutor; a confirmed evaluator who were a recruiting coordinator once in a while; and an offensive-minded tutor identified particularly for growing quarterbacks. Cignetti was once an unhidden selection sooner than they spoke. Nearest they did.
“It was like he had our blueprint and our plan literally in front of him when I was talking to him,” Dolson mentioned. “Everything that was important to us was important to him.”
Nonetheless: Indiana?
That is this system with essentially the most losses in Category I historical past, 713, and the worst successful share through a ways in Obese Ten historical past at .421. It’s to the Obese Ten as Vanderbilt is to the SEC, although Indiana does no less than have two convention titles to its title — in 1945 and 1967.
Allen equipped a short lived of hope along with his 14-7 run in 2019 and 2020. Terry Hoeppner had the power to modify the narrative within the early 2000s sooner than tragically demise of mind most cancers later two seasons. Invoice Mallory had some forged groups within the Nineteen Eighties and Nineties. Lee Corso introduced persona. Nobody has gotten out of the playground with extra wins than losses since Bo McMillin controlled that feat in 1947.
Cignetti had refuse usefulness for that historical past. However he felt it virtually straight away.
“I could tell this place had been beaten down in terms of a lot of people just didn’t think it was possible,” he mentioned. “I was just shocked at how everybody on the outside thought it was impossible to get anything done here.”
That’s the genesis of the Pittsburgh-accented “Google me.” Cignetti had heard plethora chatter in regards to the hopelessness of Indiana soccer through the future he were given to his introductory presser.
“That just killed me — that’s typical, straight Cig, right?” Mazzone mentioned.
“He really is humble, but he had to light a fire,” Manette mentioned.
“I just had to set an expectation level that this is who we’re gonna be, and we’re not gonna permit anything else,” Cignetti mentioned. “We’re winning here. There are no self-imposed limitations. I had to show that confidence, not just to the players, but to the fans.”
Nearest it was once directly to briefly solving a roster that had simply misplaced a number of defensive starters and all however one offensive starter. Cignetti introduced in 22 transfers, 13 from James Madison. He inclined on the ones guys, a number of of them in an instant a few of IU’s very best avid gamers, to get everybody else able for what was once coming.
Practices can be trim and relentlessly environment friendly. Generation can be just right for many who do the proper issues and get ready. Those coaches would have the system for successful, weekly.
“It didn’t take long for everyone to get on board,” Horton mentioned, and the Hoosiers have gained all six video games, the most efficient get started since 1967, getting into a while of revelation towards Nebraska.
The time table will get a lot more difficult from right here, with Washington, Michigan and a commute to Ohio Atmosphere bobbing up quickly. However the attribute of the soccer — spearheaded in massive phase through Ohio switch quarterback Kurtis Rourke — is plain. The Hoosiers are ingenious and explosive on offense, they usually restrain the run and get later the quarterback on protection, with JMU switch Mikail Kamara already at 5 sacks. The reaction from lovers and boosters, Cignetti mentioned, has been “over the top.”
“The NIL has grown very significantly from what it was, and it needed to,” he mentioned. “I pushed that hard. I pushed the envelope on that, and people responded.”
Already, this program has higher amenities than some would possibly understand — each stadium finish zones have been enclosed within the hour 15 years at a blended price of $91 million, plus $2 million in vault room renovations in 2019. Indiana athletics had $166.8 million in reported revenues in the latest price range yr, Incorrect. 13 within the nation and Incorrect. 5 within the Obese Ten. Indiana College has the second-largest alumni bottom within the nation, about 900,000 crowd.
So there’s cash to be present in case Cignetti’s wage must double or so, quickly later it were given multiplied through seven. As extra of school soccer reveals out who he’s, his group is in place to contend for a place within the first 12-team School Soccer Playoff. The Hoosiers will have to have an inexpensive shot at each and every recreation at the time table however the commute to Ohio Atmosphere.
Hoosiers lovers would possibly want to see extra to consider one thing like this is imaginable, however thus far in 10 months, they’ve open not anything to claim it isn’t.
“When that time comes to get into that Playoff bid, we’ll look up and see our logo up there,” Fisher mentioned, “and then we’ll get to preparing for that game just like it’s another game week.”
That self belief. That’s what Cignetti’s finished.
(Manage picture: Michael Hickey / Getty Photographs)
