Who is Curt Cignetti and where did he come from?

[Michchamp]

Who is this guy? Where did he come from?

His quote above... that's not an empty boast... he does win. He's never had a losing season, no matter where he's coached, or how bad the team he took over was the year before. 119-35 overall as of December 2023, now 128-35 after 9 games in Bloomington.

He's the son of a football coach (Frank Cignetti Sr.) who was HC at WVU in the late 70's, got fired, beat cancer, and had a
career resurgence of sorts at IUP (Indiana University of Pennsylvania) from the 80's through 2005... which his son Curt later coached.

Curt was an assistant coach for a LONG time before moving up to HC. I mean, this guy put his time in, starting as a GA at Pitt in '83, also coaching at Davidson, Rice, and Temple, before big time football at NC State, and Alabama ('07-'10). He was primarily and offensive guy coaching QBs, WRs, and TEs; He didn't get his first HC gig until IUP in 2011. He was there 4 years before a 1 year stint at Elon, then 4 more years at James Madison before IU gave him a chance after 2023.

He HAS done nothing but win, everywhere he's been, and at both IUP and Elon, he did that after taking over losing teams.

At Elon, he won 8 straight, culminating in a win over JMU - which ended their own 22 game FCS win streak. JMU immediately hired him away from Elon.

He coached JMU from their move from FCS to FBS in 2022, and kept winning there (8-3 and 11-1). And he's 9-0 so far at IU, with some question marks because of their lack of quality opponents thus far, but not because of their performance on the field, which has largely been excellent.

His IU team has an entirely new staff (no one from Tom Allen's staff was retained) and is largely built on transfers; FORTY (40) players left the 2023, and had to be replaced with transfers.

12 out of 22 of their starters on O and D are transfers, and in some positions, like RB their entire depth is built on transfers.

Their QB, Kurtis Rourke was an Ohio U transfer, and is currently #2 in the NCAA in Passing Efficiency... they almost look like 2023 Michigan, performance wise.

While the trajectory from here on out is unclear, Cignetti is on a meteoric rise.