Indiana coach Curt Cignetti is the toast of college football after leading the No. 1 Hoosiers to their first national championship on Monday. The Hoosiers pulled off a gritty 27-21 win over the No. 10 Miami Hurricanes inside a raucous Hard Rock Stadium to reach the pinnacle of college football.
Former LSU Star Makes Curt Cignetti vs. Nick Saban Assertion
Not only were the Hoosiers the most dominant team in the country, but they are also one of the most dominant national champions ever, and their 16-0 record makes them the only team since the 1894 Yale Bulldogs team to clinch that impressive record.
Cignetti is considered the cream of the crop of former Alabama Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban’s much vaunted coaching tree, which includes the likes of Georgia Bulldogs’ Kirby Smart and Texas Longhorns’ Steve Sarkisian.
After turning around the Hoosiers from a 3-9 team to the national champions in two years, the tributes flowed in, and former LSU Tigers defensive tackle Breiden Fehoko made a provocative assertion on X while comparing Cignetti to Saban.
Cignetti>Saban
Before you jump the gun just realize what Curt Cignetti just did. Nick Saban was a talent merchant. When the playing field leveled out this man ran from the grind to go join Pat McAfee. We can have a convo.
— Breiden Fehoko (@BreidenFehoko) January 20, 2026
“Cignetti>Saban Before you jump the gun just realize what Curt Cignetti just did. Nick Saban was a talent merchant. When the playing field leveled out this man ran from the grind to go join Pat McAfee. We can have a convo,” Fehoko tweeted.
When Saban was appointed Crimson Tide coach in 2007, Cignetti joined his staff as wide receivers coach and recruiting coordinator, helping bring in Heisman Trophy winners Mark Ingram and Julio Jones. Cignetti was part of Alabama’s first national championship-winning team in 2009.
Cignetti then backed himself and took the IUP Crimson Hawks job to kickstart his head coaching career, moving to Elon and James Madison before taking the Indiana job and making himself a household name.
Despite the comparisons between them, Saban won 11 SEC and seven national championships before retiring in 2024 and is widely considered the greatest coach in the history of college football.
Saban Warns Cignetti of Pitfalls of Winning
During an appearance on the “Pat McAfee Show” on Monday, Saban warned Cignetti of how winning would come with its own unique challenges.
“One of the things that these guys are going to have to go through, which Curt’s going to have to go through, is, he has done this phenomenal job in Indiana,” Saban said. “Everybody wanted to come to Indiana. People wanted to transfer there. Everybody wanted to go there because they wanted to prove something. That’s how it was at Alabama.”
“Then, when you win in 2009 and you climbed the mountain successfully, you become the mountain. Now, everybody wants to come because of what your program can do for them, and that dynamic changes everything dramatically, in terms of how you got to motivate your players, how you put together your team.”
Cignetti joins a premium list of former Saban assistants to win the national championship, including Georgia’s Kirby Smart, who has done it twice, and Jimbo Fisher, who did it with the Florida State Seminoles.
