Tony Annese is 64, the same age as Curt Cignetti and Brian Kelly.
Cignetti just signed an eight-year, $93 million contract at Indiana. Kelly just got fired by LSU, where he had a $54 million buyout. And Annese? He’s on his way to becoming the Nick Saban of Division II, vying for his fourth national championship in five years at Ferris State in Big Rapids, Mich.
This goes to show that everyone has their own race to run. A decade ago, Cignetti was a DII head coach at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where his father, Frank Cignetti, was a legendary coach and athletic director. Kelly spent more than a decade at Grand Valley State, Ferris State’s big rival, and was 42 when he got the head-coaching job at Central Michigan in 2004. When Annese was that age, he was teaching U.S. history and coaching at Muskegon High School.
“Obviously the process is a little slower in that case,” Annese said.
Annese is proof that good coaches can come from anywhere. He’d rather keep winning at Ferris State than take on a rebuilding project somewhere else, but if he’d made the jump when Cignetti did, who knows where he might be right now.
“I’ve had opportunities, but they haven’t been opportunities that were enough for me to even consider,” said Annese, who is 146-21 in 14 years at Ferris State. “I love what I’m doing.”
This year’s coaching carousel is shaping up to be a historic one, powered by jet fuel and millions in buyout money. LSU, Penn State, Florida, Auburn, Virginia Tech, Arkansas, Oklahoma State and UCLA all fired their coaches by Nov. 2. Every school with a coaching vacancy will be looking for the next Cignetti, someone who can flip the program and roll out a College Football Playoff contender right away.
The irony is that Indiana wasn’t looking for the next anything when it hired Cignetti from James Madison. The Hoosiers just wanted a winner. Cignetti, 52-9 at JMU, fit the bill. Maybe that should be a lesson for schools trying to make a splash in what figures to be a very shallow pool.
There aren’t enough can’t-miss candidates to fill all the jobs that are going to open, and if someone succeeds at prying away a big name, that’s just one more job to fill. Schools are going to eat the buyout money anyway because, in the age of the transfer portal, revenue sharing and NIL, there’s nothing more depressing than a lame-duck season with a coach who’s been pre-fired.
Wisconsin will have a decision with Luke Fickell, whose team has scored a total of 27 points during a 0-5 start in the Big Ten. Michigan State, 0-6, will face a similar decision with Jonathan Smith. The two coaches have hefty buyouts — roughly $25 million for Fickell, more than $30 million for Smith — but sometimes the only thing worse than paying the money is not paying it.
Cignetti’s success at Indiana has made life harder for a lot of his Big Ten peers. If he can transform a perennial doormat into the No. 2 team in the country in less than two years, why can’t Fickell get Wisconsin to the Pinstripe Bowl in Year 3? There’s no question which coach was the hotter name when those programs made their hires. A year after taking Cincinnati to the CFP, Fickell was a coach in high demand. Cignetti, a relative unknown, introduced himself by saying, “I win. Google me.”
Curt Cignetti has won in D-II, the FCS, the Sun Belt and now the Big Ten with Indiana, where he’s 20-2. (Greg Fiume / Getty Images)
Athletic directors are now Googling furiously, hoping to find a coach who can do for their program what Cignetti did for Indiana. Here’s a word of advice for those who won’t have first pick of the available candidates: Forget about trying to find the perfect coach. Forget about winning the news conference. Just hire a winner.
There are great coaches who, for whatever reason, didn’t get in the express lane for a big-time job. Houston’s Willie Fritz is 65 and spent his 40s coaching at Central Missouri. Kansas’ Lance Leipold, 61, was 109-6 at Division III Wisconsin-Whitewater. Chris Klieman, 58, spent most of his career in the FCS before he was hired at Kansas State.
Some coaches, like Annese, never made the jump to an FBS job. Outside of Andy Reid, it’s hard to find a coach who’s had a better five-year run. Ferris State won the D-II national championship in 2021, 2022 and 2024, and the Bulldogs are off to 9-0 and ranked No. 1 to start this season, even after losing standout quarterback Trinidad Chambliss to Ole Miss.
In an alternate universe, Annese might have taken the path that led Kelly from Grand Valley to Central Michigan, Cincinnati, Notre Dame, LSU and now unemployment. He’d have a lot more money, but he probably wouldn’t be happier.
“It’s been a glorious career,” Annese said. “I feel blessed to be able to coach at Ferris. It’s been awesome.”
The next Curt Cignetti is out there somewhere, probably coaching in front of 10,000 fans at a school known only to football diehards. With so many Power 4 programs looking for coaches, there’s always a chance that he’ll be discovered.
If not, he might become the next Tony Annese instead.