In just two years, Curt Cignetti has done the unimaginable at Indiana, leading the Hoosiers to a national championship on Monday night. Not only did the win cement Cignetti’s performance at Indiana as the greatest coaching job in the history of college football in Joel Klatt’s eyes, but he also thinks it might be the greatest coaching job we’ve seen in the history of sports.
“We have never seen anything like what we have seen from Curt Cignetti,” Klatt said on his podcast, “The Joel Klatt Show.” “There is no perspective to give, other than this is the greatest single coaching job in the history of college football. I think you have to go outside college football to start finding at least other examples of coaches that have done something that is even remotely like this.”
Curt Cignetti wins a national championship in his second season as Indiana HC
Obviously, Indiana isn’t the first team to go from rags to riches and win a title. But as Klatt pondered which other coaching jobs might have been this impressive in sports history, there is one thing that he thinks helps Cignetti’s claim in this argument.
“Is [Cignetti’s performance] just like Herb Brooks within the ‘Miracle on Ice?’ I do not know, that was a few weeks for one event,” Klatt mentioned, referring to the USA males’s ice hockey workforce’s upset win over the Soviet Union on the 1980 Winter Olympics. “Possibly them as an underdog, sure, over the Soviets and profitable that hockey recreation, albeit within the semifinals, and finally profitable the gold medal. Possibly it is that. Is it Rollie Massimino and Villanova profitable the NCAA Event? Is it Jim Valvano and North Carolina State profitable the NCAA Event? I do not know, that is one pocket with one event.
“This man, in two years, goes 27-2 with the losingest program within the historical past of the game. It is wild, it is completely wild.”
(Photograph by Eric Schweikardt /Sports activities Illustrated through Getty Pictures)
Within the “Miracle on Ice,” Brooks coached the USA males’s ice hockey workforce that was largely comprised of newbie gamers to a shocking 4-3 victory over the Soviet Union, which had a workforce full of execs and had received the gold medal in every of the final 4 Olympic Video games. The US received the gold medal with its victory over Finland in its subsequent recreation.
As for Massimino and Valvano, they every led their respective applications to shock title runs within the NCAA Event. Massimino led an eighth-seeded Villanova to a championship in 1985, taking down a Brad Daughtery-led North Carolina squad within the Elite Eight earlier than beating a Patrick Ewing-led Georgetown workforce within the nationwide championship recreation. Valvano, in the meantime, led North Carolina State to a title within the ACC Event, which it wanted to win so as to make the NCAA Event in 1983. After beating a Michael Jordan-led UNC workforce and a Ralph Sampson-led Virginia workforce within the ACC Event, Valvano coached a sixth-seeded NC State workforce to a title when it upset a Houston workforce that had Clyde Drexler and Hakeem Olajuwon.
(Photograph by Wealthy Clarkson/Sports activities Illustrated through Getty Pictures)
However, as Klatt identified, these triumphs had been accomplished in a matter of weeks. Cignetti’s accomplishment on Monday was one he had labored towards since he turned Indiana’s head coach in December 2023, taking up a program that had extra losses than anybody in faculty soccer historical past on the time. Indiana had additionally recorded 4 wins or fewer in every of the three seasons previous to Cignetti changing into head coach.
Nevertheless, not like with skilled sports activities, there isn’t any reward for being one of many worst groups in faculty soccer. That is why Klatt believes what Cignetti has completed at Indiana would possibly simply be essentially the most spectacular teaching job within the historical past of sports activities.
“We do not give the most effective draft picks to the worst applications. Actually, if you happen to’re the worst program within the historical past of faculty soccer by general losses, that usually means that you will have a scarcity of funding, a scarcity of amenities, a scarcity of curiosity,” Klatt mentioned. “It is more durable to compete. And he turns it round straight away, 27-2. Are you kidding me? That is the best teaching job within the historical past of faculty soccer, and I feel it will rival any nice teaching job that we have ever seen in any sport.”
After telling folks to “Google me” in his introductory press convention in December 2023, Curt Cignetti has racked up the accolades in his first two years at Indiana.
Now that Indiana has confirmed it may attain the mountaintop, Klatt additionally believes what Cignetti has executed has opened the door for different struggling applications to doubtlessly make a title run sooner or later, which is nice for school soccer.
“It simply goes to point out you that on this period of faculty soccer, if you happen to get the fitting individual, he is received the fitting assistants and so they usher in the fitting gamers, it may flip round, “Klatt mentioned. “The proof is correct there. Curt Cignetti simply proved it. Because of this I’d say that is the daybreak of the golden age of soccer, as a result of I imagine there are a whole lot of groups and applications that may do that. We have seen Texas Tech make investments closely. We have seen Oregon during the last two, three a long time make investments closely into faculty soccer.
“That is going to be extra of the norm, and I feel that is nice.”
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