University of North Carolina Athletics
Extra Points: Cignetti Right Man, Right Time
January 4, 2006 | Football
Jan. 4, 2006
By Lee Pace
Five years ago, John Bunting was working his network of contacts in the coaching business, drumming up ideas for the offensive coordinator hire he was going to make in his new job at Carolina. The name of Gary Tranquill came up from a bright young quarterback coach Bunting knew from his most recent job with the New Orleans Saints.
Frank Cignetti Jr. (a.k.a. Frankie from his younger days) thought the world of Tranquill. Tranquill had coached one year on the staff of Frank Cignetti Sr. at West Virginia in 1979, and Frankie and Chris Tranquill were schoolmates and fellow youth league basketball officials. Sixteen years later, when Frankie moved from coaching the secondary to quarterbacks on his father's staff at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, one of the people he sought out for direction was Tranquill, who by then had moved on to Michigan State. Cignetti, a fellow staff mate of Bunting's on Jim Haslett's staff in New Orleans in 2000, told Bunting that he should call Tranquill and try to talk him out of retiring.
What goes around, comes around.
Tranquill moved from Virginia to Carolina and spent five productive years running the Carolina offense before retiring last month. Cignetti moved from New Orleans of the NFL to Fresno State of the Western Athletic Conference and spent four productive years leading the Bulldogs to bowl wins over ACC members Georgia Tech and Virginia and putting up 53 points a game over the last six games of the 2004 season.
Now it's Cignetti's turn to get the job he recommended someone else for five years ago. The 40-year-old coach was hired Tuesday as the Tar Heels' new offensive coordinator. He'll receive $200,000 a year and has a three-year contract.
"I have never chased a job," Cignetti says. "I'm one who believes if things are meant to happen, they happen. But I knew this job was coming open, and when I got the call from Coach Bunting, I was ecstatic."
The important takeaway from this hiring is that, one, Cignetti is the right man, the right coach, the right time and the right place. He and Bunting know each other well. Cignetti is an East Coast guy and now he's closer to his Pennsylvania and West Virginia roots. Tranquill, at 60 years of age when he joined Bunting's staff, took the job on the condition he could be a background influence in recruiting. Cignetti will be aggressive and tireless on the recruiting circuit. He'll throw it enough to keep the fans happy and run it enough to win games and keep the head coach happy.
And two is that Bunting now has book-end coordinators - bright, energetic young guys in the persons of Cignetti and Marvin Sanders (age 38) who can recruit, teach and scheme. Bunting and Athletic Director Dick Baddour are paying good money with a degree of security in the ever-competitive world of hiring and retaining top assistant coaches. Cignetti was courted by Ole Miss in the last two weeks and Sanders by Kansas State in the last month, but Carolina's potential and commitment were enough to land Cignetti and keep Sanders.
Bunting interviewed at least two other coaches for the coordinator job - offensive line coach Hal Hunter and former ECU head coach Steve Logan. But Cignetti's track record at Fresno State and his familiarity with Bunting were the tipping points. Hunter is an outstanding line coach, but the coordinator's job is a better fit with the man who coaches quarterbacks. After all, the quarterback is the coordinator on the field. Logan is a brilliant coach and would have been a fascinating hire for Carolina. But his personality is certainly eccentric, and one wonders if his meshing with the old-school Bunting would be as seamless as the reunion between Bunting and Cignetti.
"Two things I like most about Frank are his passion for the game and his attention to the details about everything relative to offense," Bunting says. "I saw the way the quarterbacks responded to him in New Orleans - Jeff Blake, Jake Delhomme and then Aaron Brooks. I watched him at Fresno and I saw things on offense I want. I want to take advantage of personnel mismatches. I want to run all the downhill runs he talks about. I want to throw vertically. I want to be in multiple personnel groups. The details he brings and the way he manages the quarterback is really special."
Bunting also likes Cignetti's bloodlines - his father was a coach, recently retiring after 20 years as head coach at IUP with a 182-50-2 record, and his brother is tight ends coach and recruiting coordinator at NC State. He played secondary in college and was an all-conference safety at IUP in 1987. At his father's urging early in his coaching career, Cignetti coached both sides of the ball - receivers on offense and secondary on defense. Then in 1995, Junior was on Senior's staff at IUP and the defensive coordinator and quarterback coach jobs came open at the same time.
"My dad said, `Hey, what do you want to do? Do you want to be the defensive coordinator, or do you want to coach the quarterbacks?'" Cignetti Jr. remembers. He reflected on the many outstanding quarterback coaches he'd been around all his life, from Bobby Bowden, his dad's boss at West Virginia in the early 1970s, to Tranquill and Mike McCarthy, a fellow graduate assistant at the University of Pittsburgh in 1988 who had moved on to coaching QBs with the Kansas City Chiefs.
"I decided I wanted to coach quarterbacks," Cignetti says, "because I had the resources and I wanted to coach the whole game of football."
He's never looked back. He coached QBs at IUP for four years, the third and fourth as coordinator as well. He worked a year for the Kansas Chiefs, two for the Saints and then four at Fresno State. Cignetti's known for his confidence, fire and energy, prompting one Fresno State player several years ago to compare him to Tampa Bay coach Jon Gruden.
"He brings a different kind of emotion," Fresno State Coach Pat Hill says. "He's a very upbeat, in-your-face type of coordinator, which is very rare for a quarterbacks coach. I think that's his background as a defensive player. The kids really respond to him."
Cignetti Sr. says Tar Heel fans will have to wait before knowing what kind of offense his son will implement.
"The most important thing he'll do is take the talent available and fit the system to the talent," says Cignetti Sr. "The quarterback will determine what they'll do. He'll bring a West Coast attack from a philosophy standpoint. It's a run, play-action and pocket type of philosophy. He's a two-back guy and will have a good mix.
"But it depends on the skill level of the quarterback and receivers. One year at Fresno State, they were tight-end heavy, dropback, play-action. They had good tight ends and a quarterback who was not very mobile, and they were very efficient in what they did. If the talent suits another approach, they'll do that."
Cignetti Jr. spent 30 minutes late Tuesday afternoon meeting with the news media in the press room of the Smith Center, shortly before the Carolina-Davidson basketball game.
He talked of Fresno State's 50-42 loss to Southern Cal in mid-November.
"We simply tried to take advantage of what USC was going to give us," he said. "We were very fortunate where we had an experienced quarterback and when USC approached the line of scrimmage, we were able to exploit them with the audible package."
He talked of the competitiveness between him and his brother (Curt is five years older). "We'll be even more competitive now," he says. "I'm glad I'm wearing blue."
He talked of the enjoyment of teaching and the importance of winning while preparing young men to become adults, husbands and fathers. His priorities begin with running the ball, protecting the quarterback and then looking to throw it.
Cignetti said he ultimately took the job because of his respect and fondness for Bunting and the opportunity Carolina has to reclaim its position as one of the top programs in college football. He said every potential Tar Heel should have two goals - to earn a degree and then play in the NFL.
"And we have a head coach who has done both," Cignetti says. "You can't have a better role model than that."
Despite some problems with staffing on the defensive side of the ball over five years (four different coaches with the title of coordinator or co-coordinator), the offensive side has been relatively stable. Replacing Tranquill was a major decision for Bunting. Cignetti wasn't ready for the job five years ago, but he looks more than ready in 2006.
Send your questions about Tar Heel football to Lee Pace at leepace@nc.rr.com . Questions may be used either in Friday's TarHeelBlue.com mailbag or in a special pregame segment on the Tar Heel Sports Network on Saturday. Please include your first and last names and hometown. Individual replies are not possible because of volume of mail received, and names of recruiting prospects and commitments cannot be published on a school-sponsored site until the national signing day in February. The Q&A column will appear each Friday during the season.
