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.
hail to Pitt
Regardless of the Blog and message board chatter about how the new OC came about – the fact on the face of it is that PITT had its best season in many years – yet took pains to upgrade one of the most important components of the program in the Offensive Coordinator.
That tells me a few things:
1) PITT is looking to improve and not just paying lip service to that.
2) PITT (DW) is willing to undergo changes – with the accompanying risk/reward aspect of that change. And folks – let’s not be blind to the fact that there is risk involved here. I’ve always thought that Wannstedt wasn’t as rigidly conservative as some fans and writers make him out to be, so I believe this proves that point. The fact that PITT reached out to as many as 12 candidates as feelers for this job, and then landed a hire who looks to be an improvement tells me this wasn’t a knee jerk execution in personnel moves, but a pretty well thought out process where they reached for the best and got who they wanted. and…
3) PITT didn’t take the easy way out and give vocal fans and alumni what they wanted. That might sound a bit strange given the “Mazzone Experience” (the next ride at Kennywood – the customer in placed in car riding toward a destination and the awaiting prize, only to be snatched backwards at 300 mph short of the goal).
There was a ton of support outside the program and the administration (and some inside also I gather) for recycling Walt Harris. That would have been a easy pick – one that didn’t take due diligence and would have provided Dave Wannstedt a built in excuse had it backfired. A lesser man might have accepted that, Wannstedt apparently didn’t. Instead he and Pederson kept pitching and working for the home run.
I wasn’t as hell-bent as other fans that a change was absolutely necessary, but I did agree that in some real ways it couldn’t hurt, and could turn out to really help. The jury’s out on that until we see actual results on the field and the scoreboard after the first – let’s say, 4 – games.
However, looking at the big picture, and as a fan I’m concerned with 2010 and beyond also, I think it’s one of the Command moves that turns out to be an investment that needed to be made – and thankfully was done in the right way.
link to mbd.scout.com