Football: New coordinator Cignetti working his ‘dream’ job

It’s hard to tell what Frank Cignetti Jr. gets more excited talking about — football or the city of Pittsburgh.

So it’s not exactly shocking that he’s thrilled to be heading into his first year as the football team’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.

“It’s a dream come true,” Cignetti said.

Cignetti, a Pittsburgh native, began his coaching career in 1989 as a graduate assistant at Pitt and then spent eight years holding various coaching positions at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, his alma mater. Since then Cignetti has coached at North Carolina and Fresno State and also had stints in the NFL coaching for Kansas City, New Orleans and San Francisco.

Most recently he was the offensive coordinator at California, a team that averaged 32.6 points per game. But his time as a Golden Bear lasted only one year, as he opted to sign with the Panthers and make his return to Pittsburgh.

“I’m coaching at the place that I love, in the city that I love,” Cignetti said. “I’m living around family and friends. I’ve been blessed, professionally and personally, that I’m doing what I want to do where I want to do it.”

His excitement hasn’t gone unnoticed.

“He is just like us — upbeat, fun, and he wants to win,” junior running back Kevin Collier said.

“He’s always ready to go,” senior wide receiver Cedric McGee said. “He wakes up thinking about football, goes to sleep thinking about football and wakes up in the middle of the night thinking about football. I love his enthusiasm and excitement.”

Both players also mentioned they like the changes between Cignetti’s offense and Matt Cavanaugh’s, the previous offensive coordinator who left to be the quarterbacks coach with the New York Jets.

“His packages are different [from Cavanaugh’s],” Collier said. “He likes to go downfield more and he likes to use the backs together, like playing two running backs or two fullbacks at once. It’s different. It makes it more difficult for the defense to pick up on what we’re doing.”

If Cignetti is set on playing multiple running backs at once, he should really have fun with the Panthers. Since LeSean McCoy left early for the NFL, Pitt doesn’t really have a feature back. Freshman Dion Lewis was named starter for the opening week, but the Panthers are expected to also use freshmen Ray Graham and Chris Burns regularly. At fullback, the Panthers can use Henry Hynoski, Joe Capp and Collier, who said he’s going to split his time between running back and fullback.

Cignetti said just running through plays isn’t enough to pull the offense together. What they really need is to go up against a defense that is widely regarded as one of the best in the Big East, as Pitt’s is.

“You better believe it helps [to practice against the defense],” he said. “It helps tremendously to know that every time you step on this practice field you’re competing against the best in the Big East.”

Still, Cignetti has numerous Pitt fans to win over in his first year. One of the most prevalent knocks on the Panthers’ offense in recent years was its predictability. McGee doesn’t see that as a potential problem for the upcoming year.

“We’re going to mix it up a lot this year,” McGee said. “We’ve got a little bit of everything.”

While his offense might not be predictable, Cignetti might be. If there’s one thing you can accurately guess about him it’s that he thinks there is no better combination than football and Pittsburgh.

“For me, it doesn’t get any better than working at the University of Pittsburgh, living in his great city and working for a great head coach like Dave Wannstedt,” he said.