Kelly: Dolphins should shoot their shot at Indiana coach Curt Cignetti | Opinion
Two decades ago when the Miami Dolphins were lost in the football wilderness South Florida’s NFL franchise turned to a respected, accomplished and arrogant college coach, giving him the keys to the franchise.
While Nick Saban’s run in Miami was short, and the dismount — his return to the college game — was painful to Dolphins fans, hiring Saban, who is now recognized as a coaching legend, was the right approach for a franchise that needed a culture change, and saw no one more fit to deliver it.
Here we are two decades later in the same position, and I would like to suggest the Dolphins try the exact same approach, this time courting Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti, whose team will play the Miami Hurricanes in the National Championship Game on Monday night.
While Saban, Steve Spurrier, Butch Davis, Lou Holtz, Dennis Erickson, Bobby Petrino, Matt Rhule and Urban Meyer all failed in their college-to-pros transition, can we stop pretending there haven’t been success stories from coaches getting the NFL call up.
Dick Vermeil, Tom Coughlin, Jim Harbaugh, Jimmy Johnson, Barry Switzer and the legendary Paul Brown all came from the college ranks.
Johnson, who won championships with the Dallas Cowboys and led the Dolphins in their more recent era of relevance, isn’t even the gold standard of a college coach transitioning to the pros.
That honor belongs to Hall of Fame coach Bill Walsh, whose first major head coaching job was at Stanford, where he spent two seasons before becoming the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers, where he created the west coast offense, which still permeates throughout the league.
Some NFL owner and general manager is going to be perceived as a phenomenal judge of talent for bringing Cignetti, who owns a 135-37 record as a head coach, to the NFL, a level his brother Frank Cignetti coached in for years.
Why shouldn’t it be Dolphins owner Steve Ross and Jon-Eric Sullivan, his newly hired general manager?
Upper-echelon coaches motivate, properly evaluate, and develop talent.
They help assistants under their tutelage blossom as coaches, like Saban did for Cignetti and Mario Cristobal, the two coaches of the team’s playing in college football’s final game.
They create innovative game plans and make crucial in-game and halftime adjustments. They manage egos, sell culture and the program.
Cignetti has all of that, along with a bravado — an arrogance — I haven’t seen since Johnson and Spurrier dominated the college coaching landscape.
Why wouldn’t he be able to succeed in the NFL since it only took him two seasons to transform the Hoosiers, a basketball school, into a college football power.
At this point, with NIL money, agents, and the transfer portals making it a nightmare to run a college program, the NFL seems like an easier, and more stable job.
There is no 20-hour time limitation for meeting and practice time per week for players in the NFL.
There are no classes your players must attend.
The NFL features four- and five-year contracts for draftees, who don’t have a choice where they play, and free agents can’t leave your program (or franchise) a year after joining because the NFL’s contracts are binding, unlike the NCAA.
Cignetti is in Miami NOW preparing to coach the biggest game of his life.
Ross will be at Hard Rock Stadium attending the national championship game the stadium he owns is hosting. Someone [cough, cough Tom Garfinkel, who as CEO will have access to everyone and everything] needs to set these two up for an introduction, a meeting, maybe a sit down.
Keep it on the hush-hush to not ruin Cignetti’s college recruiting, but if that meeting goes well Ross needs to make Cignetti an offer he can’t refuse, one that trumps the eight-year, $93 million new deal he signed a few weeks ago after being named the Big Ten Coach of the Year for the second straight season.
Ignore what these college coaches say publicly about how great the college game is. Who in their right mind wants to consistently suck up to 18-year-olds making millions?
All coaches want to prove they can succeed at the highest level of their sport. Especially the confident — if not arrogant — ones, and that’s Cignetti.
If the offer and situation were right he’d probably welcome the challenge of making the Dolphins relevant again, ending this franchise’s two decades of dysfunction, which coincidentally began when Saban left the franchise to become the head coach of the University of Alabama after whiffing on the selection of a new quarterback [Daunte Culpepper over Drew Brees, SMH] for the franchise.
I’m an out-the-box thinker, so this hail mary is probably too complex for those who have limited vision, or lack an understanding of what an alpha male looks and acts like, and why a head coach of an NFL team needs to be one.
That’s why I would rather the Dolphins overpay Cignetti than hire former Cleveland Browns coach Kevin Stefanski, former New York Jets coach Robert Saleh, or another retread (which is my preference to be Miami’s next coach).
Hiring the next young and hot offensive or defensive coordinator such as Chris Shula, Anthony Campanile of Jeff Hafley has failed for the Dolphins five straight times - Tony Sparano, Joe Philbin, Adam Gase, Brian Flores and Mike McDaniel - so why not pursue someone like Cignetti, who has already proven he’s a good head coach, one that’s on the verge of becoming a legend?
