Adam RittenbergNov 14, 2025, 07:30 AM ETCloseCollege football reporter; joined ESPN in 2008. Graduate of Northwestern University.Follow on X
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4. The ability to bring along key assistants and players
Indiana’s hiring of Curt Cignetti from James Madison on Nov. 30, 2023, didn’t seem seismic or unusual at the time. Other hires in the cycle generated more buzz, within the Big Ten (Jonathan Smith at Michigan State) and beyond it (Mike Elko at Texas A&M). The January 2024 frenzy that included Kalen DeBoer leaving Washington to replace Nick Saban at Alabama and Michigan promoting Sherrone Moore to replace Jim Harbaugh blew up much more than Cignetti taking the IU job.
Two years later, everything has changed for Indiana football. The team won a record 11 games in 2024 and made its first College Football Playoff appearance. Indiana is currently ranked No. 2 in the CFP standings and bound for the Big Ten championship game and another playoff spot. Cignetti has already received two adjusted contracts and has risen to No. 3 in salary among coaches ($11.6 million). The losingest program in major college football is 21-2 under Cignetti.
ESPN spoke with several people involved in the Cignetti hire to assess the ingredients — or Cig-redients — that have led to his success, what other schools should be seeking and also the candidates in the current cycle who check some of the same boxes.
“If you truly want to find that next guy, it’s not going to hit you in the face,” a source said. “It’s peeling the onion, it’s getting to that second or third layer.”
Penn State’s firing of James Franklin on Oct. 12 placed a different focus on the oft-debated topic of coaching success. What really matters when evaluating win-loss records? Franklin was fired for not beating enough top-10 opponents at PSU. When Nebraska’s Matt Rhule emerged as a possible replacement, his struggles against highly ranked teams were immediately cited.
But are enough schools evaluating coaches who have won at multiple levels and at multiple programs? DeBoer rose from Eastern Michigan offensive coordinator in 2016 to Alabama head coach in 2024, but he also went 67-3 with three NAIA national titles at Sioux Falls.
Cignetti, meanwhile, was not just an emerging coach at a Group of 5 school, going 52-9 at James Madison, when Indiana hired him. He also had two winning seasons and FCS playoff appearances at Elon, which had had just one playoff appearance before he arrived. Cignetti also went 53-17 at Indiana-Pennsylvania, making three Division II playoff appearances.
He also had experienced success not only at lower-level programs. Cignetti was part of Nick Saban’s original staff at Alabama and helped the Crimson Tide to a national title in 2009.
“We wanted someone who had won and consistently won,” an Indiana source said. “All those experiences made him way, way more prepared than if he’d just been the offensive coordinator at some point in Alabama and gotten a head coaching job. We felt that looking at other programs, it does translate.”
First-time head coaches who jump from coordinator roles at top programs have had national-level success: Georgia’s Kirby Smart, Ohio State’s Ryan Day, Oregon’s Dan Lanning, Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman and Arizona State’s Kenny Dillingham are all examples. Others parlayed instant success in their first head coaching jobs into bigger opportunities, such as Eliah Drinkwitz moving to Missouri after a single 12-1 season at Appalachian State.
“When they’ve done it at multiple places, then it allows you to have a greater sense of comfort of: It’s not just a resource thing,” an industry source said.
Every college coach portrays himself as being directly involved in personnel. But the reality is with general managers, growing personnel departments and the payment of athletes through revenue sharing, some head coaches are more overseers and delegators in how their rosters are constructed.
He served as Alabama’s recruiting coordinator during his time there with Saban, and he has continued to closely evaluate every player he’s considering as a recruit or a transfer. As a head coach in Division II and the FCS, Cignetti maintained a hands-on philosophy. Even after taking over programs with greater resources, he didn’t step away one bit.
“I’m the GM and head coach,” Cignetti said in July at Big Ten media day. “I’m organized, I’m good with numbers. My name is on this. I spent a lot of years getting to this point, I’m the best one to do it.”
“He has to ‘OK’ every player added to the roster,” an IU source said. “Not everybody does that. A lot of [head coaches] don’t. They may just let their position coach determine who they want to recruit. He’s going to look at every one of them.”
Cignetti’s hands-on approach with who plays for him might be increasingly harder to find, given how programs are changing. General managers have important roles, as do player personnel directors and others involved in evaluation and talent acquisition. But those seeking the next Cignetti should prioritize coaches who lean into the personnel process, not away from it.
“All these guys are adding more and more staff and a GM and delegating more,” said a source involved in Indiana’s hire of Cignetti. “This guy, he wants to touch it all. We’re getting away from that, but he does it extremely well.”
When Cignetti came to Indiana, many got wrapped up in the blustery proclamations he made, from his basketball court intro to “I win. Google me.” But he also relayed a program plan that had been sharpened for many years.
“It’s not cheesy, it’s not corny, it is legitimate,” said a source close to Cignetti. “Core principles that he has believed in his entire coaching career. No. 1, it’s not bulls—.”
Some of the tenets Cignetti cited are echoed by other coaches, in job interviews and when they’re introduced at new places. But how he relayed his plan stuck with those involved in his hiring at Indiana.
“He’s very matter-of-fact,” one person said. “He doesn’t waste a lot of time and energy, doesn’t try to impress people. He’s supremely confident without being a jerk or an egomaniac. He’s got a lot of humility, because he’s put in the time to know what he knows and be confident in it.”
At his Elon introduction, he mentioned having “no self-imposed limitations” for the team. At his Indiana introduction, he said, “Average is the enemy.”
Head coaches are evaluated through the lens of who could join them and transition well to a bigger stage. Cignetti’s success at Indiana has a lot to do with him, but also the key assistants and players who joined him from James Madison and have thrived at IU.
He brought along primary coordinators Mike Shanahan (offense), Bryant Haines (defense) and Grant Cain (special teams). Haines, a finalist for the Broyles Award (nation’s top assistant) in his first season at Indiana, has been with Cignetti at all four of his head coaching stops. Cain is in his seventh season on Cignetti’s staff, while Shanahan is in his fourth. Cignetti also had strength and conditioning chief Derek Owings, who joined him at James Madison in 2020, come to Indiana.
“Having a consistent staff was really important,” an Indiana source said. “We determined that was a real indicator of success. When people have a lot of turnover, it led to a lot of inconsistencies.”
Indiana embraced Cignetti’s desire to bring others with him to Bloomington, but not all Power 4 programs are as willing to do so.
“There are others that think, ‘Hey I want you to be my head coach, but if we’re going to scoop down and pick you up from that level, you’re really going to need to hire a [higher-profile] offensive coordinator or defensive coordinator,'” a source involved in IU’s process said. “Sometimes it works. More often than not, it doesn’t.”
Cignetti also had several of JMU’s top players transfer to Indiana, where they immediately became All-Big Ten performers: linebacker Aiden Fisher, cornerback D’Angelo Ponds, wide receiver Elijah Sarratt, defensive end Mikail Kamara. Even though the players moved from the Sun Belt to the Big Ten, their familiarity with Cignetti, the other coaches and the schemes has made the transition smoother than anyone could have imagined.
“He struck gold in bringing that staff and hitting on the transfers he did the last two years,” a source said.
“He’s one of one,” an Indiana source said, “but I think you could find coaches that are similar to him.”
There are certain elements to Cignetti’s profile that probably won’t be found in a candidate pool, such as his decision to leave Saban for a Division II head coaching job and a significant pay cut. But there are other credentials that match up, and they could help certain candidates get longer looks.
Bio blast: The man who replaced Cignetti at JMU has some parallels in his background, namely success as a non-FBS head coach. Chesney went 44-21 at Holy Cross, an FCS program, and also had very successful runs at Assumption University (Division II, Brian Kelly’s alma mater) and at Division III Salve Regina. He’s 128-51 overall and has never had a losing season, winning 10 or more games four times. Chesney had not coached in the FBS before JMU and has never worked at a Power 4 program, but he’s 17-5 with the Dukes and 8-1 this year. Several of his assistants have been with him at multiple stops, including offensive coordinator Dean Kennedy and special teams coordinator Drew Canan.
Bio blast: Fritz is the only Power 4 coach appearing here and might end up finishing his excellent career at Houston. But his credentials still merit close examination for a team looking for a Cig type. Fritz has been a head coach since 1993, first at Blinn junior college at Texas, then at Central Missouri and Sam Houston before earning his first FBS gig at Georgia Southern. He won two junior college national titles at Blinn, twice reached the FCS national title game at Sam Houston and won league titles at all five of his previous coaching stops, including Tulane, where he went 23-4 in his final two seasons and went to the Cotton Bowl. Houston is the first Power 4 program where Fritz has worked, but the team is 8-2 in his second season there.