At the time, hiring Curt Cignetti, fresh from James Madison, would have been seen as a wild choice for a program like Alabama.
Many other potential Nick Saban disciples were either unavailable or not considered viable candidates when the GOAT retired.
Kalen DeBoer came off as a solid choice when Alabama needed to replace Saban.
Imagine, for a moment, that Alabama hired Curt Cignetti.
I don’t mean now. If Alabama pulled off that hopeless feat now, they’d hold a three-day tent revival in Tuscaloosa and the surrounding lands and ask Cigs to baptize a football.
I’m talking about then. Back when Nick Saban retired two years ago.
Imagine if Alabama had hired a guy who’d been on the job at Indiana for all of six weeks, who had encouraged people at his introductory news conference to Google him (because, let’s be honest, the football casuals had never heard of him), and who’d last coached a game against Coastal Carolina as James Madison’s coach.
Imagine that’s who Alabama introduced as Saban’s heir.
“We’re pleased to announce we’ve replaced the GOAT by hiring the best coach from the Sun Belt. Curt, would you like to say a few words?”
Cignetti: “Nope.” Bored stare.
“Well, there you have it. Join us next year, when we’re celebrating a national championship.”
Nobody in Alabama would’ve bought it. Everybody in Alabama would’ve demanded to know why the heck the Tide hired a coach from a basketball school.
Never mind that Cignetti once worked for Saban. I don’t recall anyone in Alabama clamoring for athletic director Greg Byrne to hire Saban’s former wide receivers coach. I don’t remember reading his name on a single candidate watch list. I don’t remember Saban anointing Cignetti.
If Alabama had hired the ex-James Madison coach to replace Saban, Paul Finebaum could’ve hosted a 72-hour special and still not have had time to answer all of the angry phone calls. In the middle of that three-day meltdown, infamous Finebaum caller Legend might have forced Byrne to walk the plank.
So, when people ask, why didn’t Alabama hire Cignetti to replace Saban, that cannot be a serious question. You know the answer. Sure, the hire might seem obvious in hindsight, but that’s the thing about hindsight. You don’t see it until after it happened and you’ve observed the proof of concept.
Nobody could have seriously expected Alabama to take inspiration from a Big Ten basketball school and hire a guy who’d never been a Power Four coach, to replace the legend at a football blue blood.
Indiana football endured more than a century’s worth of challenges, but there must be something freeing about making a football hire there. You can take a chance on a sexagenarian who’s in a perpetual state of looking like he’d rather be anywhere but where he’s standing.
At Alabama, you don’t take those kinds of chances. You hire the best coach on the market.
DeBoer hasn’t done a bad job in two seasons at Alabama, even if every Tide fan would put him on the next Greyhound headed north if it meant replacing him with Cignetti.
Cignetti’s success puts extra pressure on DeBoer, as if he needs any, because it makes fans ask and the pundits holler: Why didn’t Alabama hire a Saban disciple?
Each of the four guys coaching the playoff’s semifinalists worked for Saban, but let’s consider where those guys were two years ago.
Cignetti was settling in at a longtime Big Ten doormat, fresh off a stint in the Group of Five.
Mario Cristobal wasn’t receiving any celebratory toasts as Miami’s coach. He’d gone 12-13 in his first two seasons at the U. His Hurricanes were fresh off a loss in the Pinstripe Bowl. Think Alabama could’ve sold that hire? Yeah, right.
Pete Golding was Mississippi’s defensive coordinator. Plenty of Alabama fans had been happy to see him go when he left Saban’s staff. He would’ve been a non-starter.
Dan Lanning, a former Saban grad assistant, would have been a celebrated choice, but he wasn’t leaving Oregon and walking away from Phil Knight and Mr. Nike’s checkbook.
So, why didn’t Alabama hire a Saban disciple?
“I’m not sure if anybody was available that they could’ve maybe gotten to come here,” Saban recently explained on ESPN.
That’s probably close to the truth.
Well, maybe there was someone. If Byrne and Saban had wanted Lane Kiffin, I suspect he’d be tweeting elephants right now. That’s a story for another time.
But, this idea that Alabama should have hired Cignetti, well, nobody had that idea two years ago, because it would’ve sounded loony.
More than bold. Crazy.
Almost as crazy as Indiana football playing for a national championship game with a coach who’s two years removed from James Madison.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s senior national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.