How would Hall of Fame IUP Coach Frank Cignetti feel about his son Curt battling for a national title?

I can still remember Frank Cignetti from my ventures as a young guy in the 1950s. During those years, my father used to officiate college football games every Saturday. He was an outstanding referee, and when I became about 10 or 11 years old, he asked me if I would like to accompany him to the colleges where he officiated those games.

So, every Saturday morning, I would join him in our yellow 1957 Chevrolet and do something exciting: Watch a college football game. Sometimes we would be at Penn State or Pitt. At other times, we would venture about 37 miles to Indiana State Teacher’s College.

That was where I first saw Frank Cignetti, who was an outstanding offensive and defense end for the Indians. He was tall, tough, and good looking. Usually, I watched the QBs and running backs, but it was easy to notice Frank.

Now, the name "Cignetti" is on the lips of millions of college football fans.

That is because his son, Curt, is leading the top-seeded Indiana University Hoosiers into the college football final four as its head coach. The relationship between Frank and his sons was apparently close, according to a conversation I once had with his wife.

However, Frank, who is now in the College Football Hall of Fame, watched two of his sons follow him into the college football coaching ranks — and do well.

The interesting part of this is that none of them have won a national title — yet. And that has been the elusive goal of the Cignetti family.

Curt’s recollection of his father’s success

In researching this story, I tried to learn something about Curt’s relationship with his father. The most telling one went back to Curt’s senior year in high school in West Virginia.

And it had to do with one of the greatest battles of Frank Cignetti’s life: Cancer at at the age of 40.

Frank’s coaching career had taken an upswing when he was hired by West Virginia coach Bobby Bowden as an assistant coach. When Bowden departed for Florida State, Frank was elevated to the position of head coach.

He had worked hard to reach this position, but it ended in a less than happy way.

Curt was a high school quarterback at the time, hoping to play for his father with the Mountaineers. However, this was the quote from Curt that revealed what happened to him and his family in 1979,

In Curt’s senior year of high school, Frank battled cancer. He was told he wouldn’t live long.

He did.

“He was a walking miracle,” Curt said. “Every day after that, it was a bonus for him. He lived a full life.”

Those are tales that linger in his mind.

IU is No. 1?

Frank lived.

Jay Mariotti, “Nothing is left for Curt Cignetti except to win a

national championship,” The Sports Column, Dec. 7, 2026

Can Curt pull off a miracle and do what Frank was never able to do: Win a national championship?

Frank came close on the Div. II level, and that is the story that is interesting as Curt pursues the national title and remembers that his father overcame lymphoid granulomatosis.

The fascinating part of this narrative is that Curt started his head coaching career at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where his father also pursued a national title. However, unlike his father, who was hired as head coach at a Division I school when he was in his 30s, Curt was not hired by a top D-I school until he was 62 years old.

And he was selected by a school that had never won a national championship in football.

Frank’s career

After graduating from Indiana State Teacher’s College in 1960, Frank then coached first in high school before beginning his college career. He was hired by Dave Hart, former Johnstown High School coach, as an offensive backfield coach at Pitt. It was an inauspicious start to his career as the Panthers put together three consecutive 1-9 seasons, leading to Hart being fired.

Frank then spent a year at Princeton before joining Bobby Bowden at West Virginia, where he experienced success. He was then hired in 1975 as the WVU head coach, but over four years, he compiled just a 17-27 record, leading to his dismissal.

That led him back to Indiana, Pa., where he first became the athletic director before starting his quest to make the football team into a veritable Division II national power. From 1988 until 2005, he forged a 182-50-1 record. Included in that were four trips to the Div. II final four, losing the national title games in 1990 and 1993 and twice in the national semifinals.

I met Frank during that time as one of my hobbies was covering sports for a newspaper, and IUP was one of my beats for a number .

Curt’s upward coaching career

Curt never had ties to Indiana Pa until the 2000s. He was born when Frank was coaching at Pitt, and then he played quarterback for one year for his father and two more for Don Nehlen at WVU.

Then he started his coaching career at the Division I level, first as a grad assistant at Pitt under Foge Fazio followed by stints at Davidson, Rice, Temple, and North Carolina State.

After a successful job at NC State, he caught the eye of Nick Saban, who had taken the job as head coach at Alabama.

The Crimson Tide had tremendous success, including a national title in 2009. They won 29 straight regular season games during that time.

However, Curt wanted to become a head coach, so he followed his father’ lead to Division II IUP in 2011. Why would he leave a top college job to take a step down in 2011?

Answered that question

When he was asked that at an IUP press conference in 2011, he said this,

That is a very fair question. We have won the national championship, we have won 29 regular season games in a row,  and we have accomplished a lot of great things.

But, I was just ready for a different challenge. I was ready to be a head coach, I was ready to wake up in the morning and set the agenda and work the plan.

You Tube coverage of press conference

However, there were two things I noted about his responses. First, he never mentioned the fact that his father had played or had a distinguished coaching career at Indiana.

Second, he said that he wanted to elevate the IUP program to something that it has never accomplished under Frank or anyone else.

I have really felt a special bond and fit with IUP. I knew that they had been there before and could get there again. I would really like to take the program one step further so we could raise the victory flag in Florence, Alabama, and that’s the goal of this program.

You Tube coverage of press conference

Florence, Alabama was where the D-II national champions were crowned. He left IUP before he accomplished that to move to Elon and then James Madison, where the Hoosiers’ selection committee noticed him at the age of 62.

One interesting point is that when he coached at IUP, Curt was earning just over $100,000. He is now making about 8 million dollars a year with a long term contract at Indiana-Bloomington.

How would Frank feel right now?

His other son, Frank Jr., has coached on many levels, though not as a head coach. He has coached in the NFL with the Packers, the Giants, and the Rams. He has also coached at Boston College and Pitt, and he is now the offensive coordinator at IUP.

As for how Frank would feel, he would no doubt have tremendous pride in what Curt has accomplished. If he could win the national title, then he would have achieved what his father never did, but will that be a miracle like what his father did in overcoming cancer?

Well, that is another story.