ULM’s Bowden ‘Not Surprised’ At Cignetti’s Ability To Lead JMU To Top Of Sun Belt

Jul 25, 2023 Updated 3 hrs ago
NEW ORLEANS, La. — Each time ULM coach Terry Bowden sees JMU coach Curt Cignetti, he’s reminded of Frank Cignetti, Curt’s father.
Bowden, who played under Frank at West Virginia, has known Cignetti for more than 40 years and he can’t get it out of his mind. When Cignetti talks, it’s similar to his father. His mannerisms are too.
That’s translated onto the football field as well. Bowden was impressed with Frank’s offensive thinking as a coach and when he sees Cignetti on the field, there’s a similar way about him.
“His dad was one of the best offensive minds that I want to say I’ve been around, but it was more like my dad was around. He was my head coach and I didn’t know too much,” Bowden told the Daily News-Record at the Sun Belt Conference media day Tuesday morning. “Curt is very much in the same mode, he understands football and he knows how to be a head coach.”
As Bowden saw JMU’s inaugural Sun Belt Conference season go off almost without a hitch — 8-3 and first place in the East — he wasn’t stunned.
“It didn’t shock me at all with how good James Madison was,” Bowden said. “And they’re going to be a team to be reckoned with every year because they’re not going to say, ‘We did a good job’ and not support their program.”
It didn’t catch Bowden off guard for two reasons: coaching and university support.
“With a coach like Curt at James Madison and their resources and their history of being successful, it was a no-brainer,” Bowden said. “It was a good move for the [Sun Belt] and it was a good move for JMU.”
The move from the FCS to the FBS brought some unknowns, but Bowden didn’t think that JMU would have a problem with the winning tradition the Dukes brought with them.
Why? He’d seen it up close when he coached at Samford and at Akron. Both times, his teams won, but Bowden knew the quality of a program that JMU was.
Bowden said it also helped that Cignetti had coached at different levels of college football, which he had as well. Bowden has previously coached at every level of college football — from NAIA to the Southeastern Conference. Similarly, Cignetti spent six years at Division II Indiana University of Pennsylvania after he was on staff at multiple FBS programs as an assistant, including Alabama.
The 27-year head coach stressed the importance of experience at various levels of college football to understand, not only how to coach, but how to utilize what a coach has at his disposal.
“I think it’s a great strength to have coached at different levels,” Bowden said. “To know how to live with what you’ve got. … I think it’s extremely valuable to come through the ranks or work your way through different levels.”
JMU has the largest athletic budget in the Sun Belt and the Dukes were able to make a splash in their first year with state-of-the-art facilities and support.
On top of the ability to maximize what it had, Bowden said JMU wasn’t behind the eight ball in talent level. He said that the top-tier FCS programs have the ability to compete with many FBS teams because the talent gap isn’t as large as some may expect.
Now, a year after the Dukes were picked sixth in the East Division in the conference’s coaches poll, JMU was projected to win its division for the second straight season.
Bowden said that it wasn’t “disrespect” that sent the Dukes towards the bottom of last season’s poll, rather it was because teams weren’t familiar with JMU like he was.
But now, they are.
“These other programs aren’t going to lay over them,” Bowden said. “I think for all the coaches and teams that weren’t familiar with JMU, they’re familiar now.”