older article on Cigz as Rutgers coordinator

Rutgers’ Frank Cignetti injects Super Bowl-winning system into an anemic offense

Steve Politi | for NJ.com

http://www.nj.com/rutgersfootball/index.ssf/2011/08/politi_rutgers_frank_cignetti.html

August 08, 2011

Frank Cignetti could spend hours trying to describe the offense he is bringing to Rutgers, breaking down the multiple formations and shifts designed to create matchup problems.

But, to keep everyone from overdosing on X’s and O’s, perhaps it’s better to start here: You know the Green Bay offense? The one that put up silly numbers in the playoffs last winter en route to a Super Bowl title?

Yes, it’s a lot like that offense.

“The foundation is the same,” Cignetti said Sunday at the team’s annual media day, and it isn’t something he merely copied from Mike McCarthy, the Packers’ head coach. He learned it alongside him, starting in 1989 when the two men were unpaid graduate assistants at Pittsburgh.

Cignetti would pick up McCarthy each morning and drive him to work, and then the two would stop for pizza on the way home. Their paths met again, when McCarthy was the offensive coordinator for the New Orleans Saints and Cignetti worked as his quarterbacks coach.

“I would not be standing where I am without my father and Mike McCarthy,” said Cignetti, whose dad was a longtime coach at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. “I’ve had a great opportunity to learn from the best, and an opportunity to blend what I’ve learned.”

Now he’ll bring that blend, which he describes as a combination of Bill Walsh’s West Coast offense and Don Coryell’s Digit play-calling system, to Rutgers. There isn’t a more anticipated or important addition to the Scarlet Knights than their new offensive coordinator, who arrives from Pittsburgh to reinvent a unit that ranked 114th in the nation last season.

Any Rutgers fan could tell the new guy this: The confused-looking, sack-prone, wildcat-reliant offense was painful to watch. Luckily for him, Cignetti didn’t watch it, choosing only to look at enough film when he took the job this winter to get a feel for the talent level.

He likes what he saw. Rutgers has two future pros at wide receiver in Mohamed Sanu and Mark Harrison, a physically imposing tight end in D.C. Jefferson and the best recruit in school history, Savon Huggins, expected to challenge for the starting job at running back.

Now it needs a scheme that will keep sophomore quarterback Chas Dodd off his back. Rutgers gave up an NCAA-record 61 sacks last season, and while the offensive line looks mostly the same, Cignetti believes his offense — with a passing game reliant on quick routes and timing, one that will complement a strong running game — will take pressure off the pass blockers.

“The system itself has answers to defensive-generated problems,” Cignetti said. “What’s the problem? Here’s the solution. When you look at the three phases of offense, this is a true system that, in my mind, is second to none.”

Spend 20 minutes talking to Cignetti (and, with Rutgers’ rules forbidding assistant coaches to speak the media, this will be the only time you’ll hear from him for a while), and it’s clear that the defensive-minded Greg Schiano has hired his offensive soulmate for this job.

If Cignetti had plastic surgery to put a gap between his teeth, it would be hard to tell them apart. They even played in the same game back in the mid ’80s — Schiano a linebacker for Bucknell, Cignetti a safety for IUP — but they never spoke until the latter became a candidate for the job at Rutgers.

“I can tell you one thing: Frank Cignetti is as passionate about his offense as I was as a defensive coordinator,” Schiano said, and it’s an offense Schiano is comfortable with, too.

Schiano talked about getting back to a blue-collar style that better fits the personality of his program and the state. Cignetti, who has moved his family to five coaching stops in the past six years alone, wants to be part of that solution long term.

Cignetti said he started his first meeting with his offensive players with a question: “What is an NFL system?” His players can’t be faulted if they scratched their heads or threw up their hands.

Finally, they’re starting to find out. Cignetti is bringing an offensive system that resembles the one that won the Super Bowl last season, and for a unit that needs an identity, that’s a pretty good place to start.