Rick Neuheisel discusses how Curt Cignetti is ‘not trying to be Nick Saban’ while sharing similar personality
By Sydney Hunte
Published:
Curt Cignetti coached wide receivers under Nick Saban at Alabama for four seasons before becoming a head coach for the first time in 2011. The Indiana head coach has mentioned repeatedly how much of an impact Saban has had on his career.
And, in many ways, the two men are similar. Both are outspoken with a laser-focused attention to detail. Their approaches have worked: Cignetti, who was named Indiana’s head coach ahead of the 2024 season, took over a 3-9 football team and led them to a national championship in one of the most dramatic turnarounds in the history of the sport.
That’s not to say Cignetti and Saban are carbon copies. Cignetti’s certainly more prone to express his sense of humor than Saban and, while not afraid to chew a player out on the sideline, doesn’t do it with the same frequency as his former boss. But they’re cut from the same cloth, CBS Sports college football analyst Rick Neuheisel said on Tuesday.
“There’s no question that he is who he says he is,” Neuheisel said on CBS Sports Network’s Inside College Football. “It’s interesting when you’ve been on the staff of an icon. He was on Nick Saban’s staff. There are so many people that try and go and be Nick Saban when they leave.
“He’s not trying to be Nick Saban, but there are so many things in his personality that are right in line with the way Nick Saban thinks. And he is being authentic to himself, and it is resonating and then some.”
Sydney is an Atlanta-based journalist who has covered everything from SEC and ACC football to MLS, the U.S. men's national soccer team and professional tennis. His work has appeared on such platforms as SB Nation, Cox Media Group and FanSided.
