MIAMI — Before Curt Cignetti became the story of college football, before he took a program known for losing and turned it into an undefeated dynamo, he was coaching in anonymity at the Football Championship Subdivision, the lower level of Division I.
That is, until Jeff Bourne and James Madison gave him a shot.
Bourne had an eye on Cignetti from his days at Division II Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP), where he compiled a 53-17 record across six seasons, and then FCS school Elon. But it wasn’t until the James Madison athletic director got an up close look at a Cignetti-coached team during the 2018 season that he was convinced Cignetti would be a home run at his school.
“They came to Harrisonburg to play us, and we had a really good football team. We were projected to win, but they came to Harrisonburg and just whipped us,” Bourne told The Post in a phone interview over the weekend as Cignetti was preparing top-seeded Indiana for Monday night’s national championship game at Hard Rock Stadium against No. 10 Miami. “It gave me a chance to watch what he’d done, and then to watch him on the field and how he coached. I was so impressed. I thought he could do a great job at JMU one day if he ever decided to make a change.”
