Greatest Coaching Job Ever? Joel Klatt Says Curt Cignetti’s Title Defies History

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."

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] similar to Herb Brooks in the ‘Miracle on Ice?’ I don't know, that was a couple of weeks for one tournament," Klatt said, referring to the United States men's ice hockey team's upset win over the Soviet Union at the 1980 Winter Olympics. "Maybe them as an underdog, yes, over the Soviets and winning that hockey game, albeit in the semifinals, and ultimately winning the gold medal. Maybe it's that. Is it Rollie Massimino and Villanova winning the NCAA Tournament? Is it Jim Valvano and North Carolina State winning the NCAA Tournament? I don't know, that's one pocket with one tournament.

"This guy, in two years, goes 27-2 with the losingest program in the history of the sport. It's wild, it's absolutely wild."

In the "Miracle on Ice," Brooks coached the United States men's ice hockey team that was mostly comprised of amateur players to a surprising 4-3 victory over the Soviet Union, which had a team full of professionals and had won the gold medal in each of the last four Olympic Games. The United States won the gold medal with its victory over Finland in its next game.

As for Massimino and Valvano, they each led their respective programs to surprise title runs in the NCAA Tournament. Massimino led an eighth-seeded Villanova to a championship in 1985, taking down a Brad Daughtery-led North Carolina squad in the Elite Eight before beating a Patrick Ewing-led Georgetown team in the national championship game. Valvano, meanwhile, led North Carolina State to a title in the ACC Tournament, which it needed to win in order to make the NCAA Tournament in 1983. After beating a Michael Jordan-led UNC team and a Ralph Sampson-led Virginia team in the ACC Tournament, Valvano coached a sixth-seeded NC State team to a title when it upset a Houston team that had Clyde Drexler and Hakeem Olajuwon. 

But, as Klatt pointed out, those triumphs were completed in a matter of weeks. Cignetti's accomplishment on Monday was one he had worked toward since he became Indiana's head coach in December 2023, taking over a program that had more losses than anyone in college football history at the time. Indiana had also recorded four wins or fewer in each of the three seasons prior to Cignetti becoming head coach.

However, unlike with professional sports, there's no reward for being one of the worst teams in college football. That's why Klatt believes what Cignetti has accomplished at Indiana might just be the most impressive coaching job in the history of sports. 

"We don't give the best draft picks to the worst programs. In fact, if you're the worst program in the history of college football by overall losses, that generally means that you're going to have a lack of funding, a lack of facilities, a lack of interest," Klatt said. "It's harder to compete. And he turns it around right away, 27-2. Are you kidding me? This is the greatest coaching job in the history of college football, and I think it's going to rival any great coaching job that we've ever seen in any sport." 

Now that Indiana has proven it can reach the mountaintop, Klatt also believes what Cignetti has done has opened the door for other struggling programs to potentially make a title run in the future, which is good for college football. 

"It just goes to show you that in this era of college football, if you get the right person, he's got the right assistants and they bring in the right players, it can turn around, "Klatt said. "The evidence is right there. Curt Cignetti just proved it. This is why I would say this is the dawn of the golden age of football, because I believe there are a lot of teams and programs that can do this. We've seen Texas Tech invest heavily. We've seen Oregon over the last two, three decades invest heavily into college football. 

"This is going to be more of the norm, and I think that's great."

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