Has Curt Cignetti passed Kirby Smart in college coaching ranks?
Fox Sports analyst Joel Klatt says a case can be made that Indiana coach Curt Cignetti has passed Georgia’s Kirby Smart in the coaching ranks if the Hoosiers win the College Football Playoff title game.
“Yeah, you can make the argument,” Klatt said on “The Next Round” podcast Monday. “Some would disagree, but there’s no doubt, and, by the way, Kirby hasn’t even been in the final four in the last three years.
“Three years is a long time, that’s basically a whole cycle — almost a whole cycle of college players — we are approaching very quickly a roster full of kids at Georgia who have never even played in the final four.”
Smart is coming off back-to-back SEC championship seasons and appearances in the CFP Sugar Bowl quarterfinal.
To Klatt’s point, the Bulldogs don’t have any returning players listed on the participation list from Georgia’s 65-7 CFP title-game win over TCU after the 2022 season.
Only two returning Georgia starters — offensive linemen Earnest Greene lll and Drew Bobo — were on the 2022 team’s national championship roster.
Smart’s supporters will note he is one of only three active coaches to have won a national title, and one of two (Clemson’s Dabo Swinney) with multiple national championship seasons to his credit.
Smart is 117-21 overall and just completed his 10th season as UGA’s head coach, and he stands as the only active coach in the SEC to have won an SEC championship game.
The Bulldogs are 44-18 against Top 25 teams during Smart’s tenure, including 25-11 against teams in the top 10 and 9-6 against top-five competition.
Cignetti is 145-37 over his four head coaching stops since the 2011 season.
Cignetti left his post as the Alabama receivers coach and recruiting coordinator — working beside Smart on Nick Saban’s staff 2007-10 — to take over at Division ll Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP) 2011-16.
“Once I went with Nick, I felt like I got what I needed, really after Year One,” said Cignetti, who previously worked at North Carolina State as an assistant (2000-06), and before that, under College Football Hall of Famer Johnny Majors at Pitt (1993-99).
“I bet on myself,” Cignetti said of leaving Alabama’s staff to take the IUP head coaching job. “It was a very unorthodox move, I mean almost crazy move. And I thought I was crazy a few mornings waking up that first month, but here I am today.”
Cignetti moved from IUP to Elon (2017-18) of the FCS as head coach, and then James Madison, which transitioned from the FCS ranks to FBS during Cignetti’s tenure in 2022.
Indiana hired Cignetti, 64, before the 2024 season, and he is 26-2 with the Hoosiers, including a 5-2 mark versus Top 25 teams.
Klatt, whose network is contracted to cover Big Ten games, said he believes Indiana’s rise and the national championships won by Ohio State and Michigan the previous two seasons have made a statement.
“I firmly believe in the last three years, and certainly this postseason and the last two postseasons, this narrative that the SEC is somehow vastly superior than the rest of college football, that’s dead,” Klatt said.
“This idea of the (SEC) gauntlet … it leads into this idea that Kirby is the best coach in college football. Well no, he’s not. He hasn’t played in the final four the last three years, with good teams, by the way, and in some cases, based on the (talent) composite, the most talented team,” Klatt said.
“So Curt Cignetti is doing more with less than anybody, and he’s doing it on a stage and at a pace right now that is fairly unprecedented. He (has done) it at Indiana — Indiana is likely to win the national championship, that blows my mind.”
The Hoosiers, a team heavy on transfers with approximately two-thirds of the starters attained via the transfer portal — are an 8.5-point favorite to beat Miami in the championship game at 7:30 p.m. Monday when the teams meet at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida.
About the Author
Mike is in his 10th season covering SEC and Georgia athletics for AJC-DawgNation and has 25 years of CFB experience. Mike is a Heisman Trophy voter and former Football Writers President who was named the National FWAA Beat Writer of the Year in January, 2018.
