One of the interesting things that came out of Cignetti’s introductory press conference, was that he knows how to sell people. I’ve read some of the comments that were surprised for various reasons by Paul Zeise’s glowing blog post on his initial impressions of Cignetti.
Cignetti, to me, is like a five-star recruit from this standpoint — you don’t know if he can live up to the hype, but you’d like to think so. And more to the point, when you land a five-star recruit, it is always a good thing, even he ultimately turns into a bust, because you at least aimed for the sky.
I don’t know if the guy can coach, but he certainly won the press conference and he certainly won the battle of public perception and he certainly has energized a fan base — and believe me this is the kind of jolt of energy this program needed.
Yesterday was the first day I met Frank Cignetti and here was my immediate impression….
“I’m talking to the next head coach at Pitt”
Oh I know, I am getting way ahead of myself as I don’t expect Dave Wannstedt to step aside or get asked to step aside any time soon, but Cignetti is that impressive and it is easy to see why he was such an attractive hire for Pitt.
In fact, in my discussions with people after the news conference I said “I don’t know what “it” is when talking about what makes an outstanding coach, but that guy has “it” and he’s convinced me that he’ll get the job done.”
He goes on for a bit including a comparison of initial impressions similar to when he met Rich Rodriguez. You know, I don’t have any problem with the post. That is what having a blog for a beat writer should be. Not just material that didn’t get out of the notebook, but sharing a bit more of the opinion and impressions. No one is unbiased. You just want the stories to be relatively straight-forward. A blog post doesn’t have to be.
He’s also dead-on with energizing the fans. Look, I know this was a fairly successful season. 9 wins is a little better than solid, and is a very good step up from the first 3 years. That said, the way this season began and ended took a real toll on the goodwill and emotions of the fans.
Coach Wannstedt needed to make a hire like this. Some can make the argument that it isn’t fair to Wannstedt and the full picture needs to be considered — especially with the season as a whole. I can understand that rationally and intellectually. The emotional part — and that is a huge part of fandom — though, finds the beginning and end games so overwhelmingly maddening and inexcusable. Not for the losses, but the way the losses took place. It just brought back all the stuff that had been piling up and had been excused for the first few years of the Wannstedt reign.
While he gushed more than others, he wasn’t the only one to come away extremely impressed with Cignetti.
2 things that came to mind after listening yesterday to Pitt’s new offensive coordinator Frank Cignetti, 1) the guy is going to make a great recruiter 2) he could eventually be the replacement for Dave Wannstedt.
One other thing that caught my eye was this photo from the presser. It’s a little thing, but still.
Seriously, Coach Wannstedt? Wearing the pullover from the Sun Bowl to the intro for the new OC? I know getting to the bowl was good, and I’m sure the item is quality. Still the actual game was an offensive debacle that helped make the change that brought in Cignetti, and brought back more than a little fan discontent with Wannstedt. Please, never wear it in public events again.
