ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
No one has ever done what Cignetti did before and no one is ever going to do it again.I disagree. What he did was take years of developing a system under the tutelage of great coaches, implementing it at a lower level (JMU) and then having the exquisite timing of entering power-conference coaching at a time when he could take a raft of his own, best, P-5 quality players with him, juice the lineup from the portal using abundant resources, and implement that system immediately.
He's a very intelligent, creative coach. And a helluva salesman. He did what he did using a great system, intelligent assistants, stellar players and a Heisman QB.
Impressive and revolutionary, yes. Magical? No, IMO. Using a finance analogy, he uncovered underpriced securities in what was an inefficient market and used a low-transaction-cost strategy to earn above-market returns without using the mirage of leverage. Can he continue to earn such returns? Only if the market becomes more efficient. Football coaches, because they're hidebound, often seem to leave visible 20-dollar-bills lying in the gutter. So, perhaps he can.
The only other sports comp that seems appropriate is Leicester City winning the Premier League (which was EVEN MORE unlikely from a statistical/betting odds perspective but also was a one-year wonder that immediately collapsed and never approached the same heights again, and wasn't the work of a single mastermind in the same way)