Twelve FBS jobs open before Halloween and more are certain to follow, both from firings that have yet to happen and chain-reaction moves once some of the current jobs are filled. With only a precious few A-list candidates thought to be available at this point in the cycle -- Ole Miss's Lane Kiffin, Tulane's Jon Sumrall -- which has led to the popular thought that schools are going to have to find "their own Curt Cignetti."
That's a loaded statement for multiple reasons.
First, let's consider what we know about Cignetti. He spent nearly two decades as an FBS assistant, eventually serving as Nick Saban's original wide receivers coach at Alabama and winning a national title there, before famously betting on himself by taking a Division II job, then winning his way back to the big time. All that experience took time to acquire, so Cignetti was 62 by the time he landed his first Power 4 head coaching job. Along the way, Cignetti mastered the art of team building in less than ideal circumstances, mastered the transfer portal, and jumpstarted his Indiana success by importing the nucleus of his James Madison teams. Cignetti also has a brash personality that made it clear to everyone inside and outside the building that IU wasn't waiting for anyone's permission to challenge for Big Ten and national championships.
Here is an expansive but not exhaustive list of coaches that check fit the Cignetti Mold, broken into rough tiers (listed alphabetically).
95% CIGNETTI
Willie Fritz, Houston (65): Fritz has climed nearly every rung of the ladder, and won at all of them. He's won conference championships in junior college, Division II, FCS, the Sun Belt and the American, and is now 7-1 in Year 2 at Houston.
KC Keeler, Temple (66): Who else has won the New Jersey Athletic Conference and the Western Athletic Conference. Keeler's first season as a head coach saw him win 11 games at Division III Rowan University in 1993, and more than 30 years later he's 276-115-1 with two FCS titles at Delaware, one at Sam Houston, and is now 5-3 in Year 1 at Temple after the Owls went 3-9 for four seasons prior. With Brian Kelly no longer in coaching, Keeler is currently the winningest active FBS head coach.
85% CIGNETTI
Scott Abel, Rice (55): A college baseball player, Abel learned football as a Virginia high school coach, then went 39-24 as the head coach at Washington & Lee from 2012-17 and 47-28 at Davidson from 2018-24. He's currently 4-4 in his first season at Rice -- a school that last enjoyed a winning season in 2014. Abel's gun option offense might be an issue for a program that feels like it needs to recruit NFL players to win, but it would be an asset for a program that wants to win and figure out the rest later.
Jeff Brohm, Louisville (54): It's actually puzzling why Brohm hasn't gotten more buzz as The Next Cignetti(TM). Is he too young? Because he's coaching his alma mater? That he never coached a sub-FBS team? The Louisville Fire, whom Brohm coached in 2002, played in the AFL 2, commonly known as Division III of professional football. Brohm went 30-10 at Western Kentucky from 2014-16, 36-34 from 2017-22 at Purdue -- including back-to-back 6-3 Big Ten records... when's the next time that's going to happen at Purdue? -- and is now 25-9 at Louisville. James Franklin failed because he couldn't beat ranked teams, and he couldn't beat ranked teams because he couldn't develop quarterbacks. Brohm excels in both areas.
Bob Chesney, James Madison (48): How many of you can pinpoint Salve Regina and Assumption on a map? Chesney can; he went 67-25 there from 2010-17. Chesney then went 44-21 from 2018-23 at Holy Cross, and is now 15-5 at Cignetti's own James Madison. Their last names even begin with the same letter!
Chris Creighton, Eastern Michigan (56): If you're not impressed by Creighton's 59 wins across 12 seasons at Eastern Michigan, it's because you're not familiar with Eastern Michigan. The Eagles enjoyed two bowl trips -- ever -- before he took them to the 2016 Bahamas Bowl, and they've been five times since. Creighton got the job by going 32-9 at Ottawa University, 63-15 at Wabash College, and 44-22 at Drake.
Dave Clawson, free agent (58): You forgot about him, didn't you? Clawson landed his first head coaching job at Fordham at 32, winning 29 games at Fordham, 29 more at Richmond, 32 at Bowling Green, and 67 at Wake Forest. Many would argue that Clawson's .513 winning percentage is not quite Cignetti-like, but Clawson and his agent would counter that Clawson spent 16 years at Bowling Green and Wake Forest.
Lance Leipold, Kansas (61): Admittedly, the timing here is not great given that Kansas is 9-11 over its past two seasons and fresh off a loss to K-State that Leipold called "embarrassing." But it's not as if Leipold reached 160 career wins and suddenly forgot how to coach. Even setting aside his six Division III titles at Wisconsin-Whitewater, Leipold won two division championships at Buffalo.
Jeff Monken, Army (58): Monken led Georgia Southern to three straight FCS semifinals from 2010-12, and has now turned Army into a consistent winner, racking up 85 wins and counting over 11-and-a-half seasons. Army won 36 games in the 12 seasons prior to Monken. He's been typecast as a triple option guy, but: A) the Army offense has evolved quite a bit from 2013 to '25, and B) Monken ran the triple because he was at Georgia Southern and Army; Georgia Southern and Army didn't run the triple because Monken was their coach.
SQUINT AND YOU CAN SEE IT
Drew Cronic, Navy offensive coordinator (51): This may be a little bit early in Cronic's development cycle given that he's in Year 2 as Navy's OC, but prior to that he racked up a 75-23 mark at Reinhardt University, Lenoir-Rhyne, and Mercer. At Navy, he's taken the Midshipmen from 119th in yards per play in the year prior to his arrival to second this season.
Matt Drinkall, Central Michigan (42): Drinkall went 42-17 as the head coach at Kansas Wesleyan from 2014-18, then spent six seasons in a variety of roles at Army helping Monken modernize his offense. He's now 5-3 in Year 1 at Central Michigan, equaling the Chips' highest win total over the past three seasons.
Jason Eck, New Mexico (48): Eck took the offensive line job at Winona State in 2007, and in the 18 years between '07 and 2024, he spent all but two at the sub-FBS level. He grinded his way to FBS, including a 26-13 3-year run as Idaho's head coach, where his five wins have already matched UNM's high-water mark since 2016.
Charles Huff, Southern Miss (42): Huff isn't as far along in his head coaching career as Cignetti, but both coached an offensive skill position under Saban, and Huff "pulled a Cignetti" by winning the Sun Belt at Marshall, then bringing much of that team with him to Southern Miss, where he's currently 6-2 in Year 1.
Sean Lewis, San Diego State (39): Lewis's 24-31 mark at Kent State must be judged on on a Sandy Koufax curve. His two 7-win seasons are tied for the second most since 1976, and the program has won four games total since his 2022 departure. In Year 2 at SDSU, he's taken the Aztecs from 3-9 to 6-1.
Jerry Mack, Kennesaw State (45): Mack won three straight MEAC championships in his 30s at North Carolina Central, then jumped up a level to become Rice's offensive coordinator. It took longer that he probably expected -- seven years, including a stop as an NFL assistant -- before landing his first FBS head coaching job, but in Year 1 at Kennesaw State he's 5-2 and tied for first in C-USA. The Owls went 2-10 last season.
Eric Morris, North Texas (40): Morris is crafting an argument to be the most successful Mike Leach disciple. He got Incarnate Word's program up and running (Morris went 24-18 with two FCS playoff appearances, the two head coaches prior to him were 30-64), put Cam Ward on the FBS map in one season at Washington State, and has progressed from 5-7, to 6-7, to 7-1 and counting at North Texas. Morris has more QB identification and development skins on the wall than anyone in college football next to Lincoln Riley. After Drew Mestemaker into a star after last starting a game on the Freshman B-team, Morris's next act should be to put up 40 points with an actual Freshman B-team quarterback.
Willie Simmons, FIU (45): Simmons went 21-11 at Prairie View A&M from 2015-17, and 45-13 at Florida A&M from 2018-23. He bet on himself in 2024 by taking the running backs job at Duke, and is now 3-4 in Year 1 at FIU. Two more victories would qualify as the Golden Panthers' most successful season since 2019.
That's a non-exhaustive list of quality options (agents, coaches, and coaches wives: please don't yell at me if you or your guy was not included). The tl;dr is that there are a lot of good coaches out there. But it's not always so simple.
There are other things to consider here:
-- It's possible Cignetti is 1 of 1. Ol' Cig may just be That Dude. He's 18-2 at the losingest program in Power 4 history, an accomplishment that is talking about simultaneously all the time and also not enough. Anyone expecting Cignetti-like results from a Cignetti-like hire is probably going to end up disappointed.
-- A Cignetti-like resume is not a guarantee of success. Kalen DeBoer scores a 9.9 on the Cignetti Scale, having spent his formative years at NAIA Sioux Falls before grinding his way from FCS to the Big Ten as a defensive coordinator. You know who would've scored a perfect 10.0 on the Cignetti Scale? Brian Kelly. Kelly won back-to-back Division II national championships, then won titles in the MAC and Big East. His 12 seasons alone at Notre Dame are enough to put him into the College Football Hall of Fame. How could he possibly fail at LSU? Most would say Kelly's personality was his downfall, and that's not wrong. But Kelly and Cignetti's personality and senses of humor are more alike than not; Cignetti's is viewed as charming because he's winning, and Kelly's was grating because he was losing.
-- There's also plenty of evidence that the exact opposite path is the way to go, too. Last year's national championship was played between first-time head coaches. The No. 1 team entering the 2024-25 CFP was coached by a first-timer. The 2021-22 national champions were also coached by a first-timer. One could argue that Ohio State, Notre Dame, Oregon and Georgia are titans of the sport, but so, too, are LSU, Florida and Penn State. Plus, Georgia Tech and Vanderbilt have ridden first-timers (alums, both) into the AP top-10.
If you're a school competing in the crowded market for coaching talent, understand two things: 1) There's no one path that must be followed to find your next great coach, and 2) No template free from risk. But more importantly, don't listen to the consensus from the pundit class that there are more "good jobs" than "good candidates" in the 2025-26 cycle.
The candidates are abundant, so long as you know where to look.