Nick Saban’s Coaching Tree Branches Further Than Just Curt Cignetti on New Indiana Staff

Written by: Nate Comp (@NathanComp1)

The 2024 college football offseason has been wacky; a former Indiana assistant coach took over the Alabama head coaching job, while a former Alabama assistant coach took over the Indiana head coaching job.

But new Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti is not the only member of the new staff with Alabama ties; new co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Tino Sunseri has ties to Alabama, and specifically Nick Saban, as well.

“It was a unique perspective for myself because my dad had coached there [at Alabama] for numerous years and my brother had played there,” said Sunseri to Rhett Lewis in Indiana’s most recent Under the Hood with Indiana Football. “So, I had always wanted to be able to go to Tuscaloosa. I would go to the bowl games, I would be around their staff, I would see how all of them were able to work and the standard that coach [Nick Saban] held every single person in the building to. My ultimate goal was to get to be able to work for him one day.”

After hanging up the cleats from his playing career in 2015, Sunseri began his coaching career. But he was strategic with how he chose his jobs; if he wasn’t learning from Saban himself, he wanted to go places where he could learn from those that had worked with him.

“One of the things I wanted to be able to do was to be able to capitalize on the people that had also learned from him and gone on to have success. So being around Jimbo Fisher in my first stint in 2016-17 at Florida State, and then being around Jeremy Pruit in 2018 at Tennessee. It was something where I felt like I wanted to get attached to Coach Saban, ultimately hoping to one day finally work for him…”

That day finally came just three years into his coaching career.

“I was very blessed that in 2018 Coach Saban gave me that call to be able to come down to Alabama to work with Steve Sarkisian and be his right-hand man.”

He got right to work with the now retired legend of the game.

“What I did is I walked into his office and said ‘Coach, I’m here to be able to help the program as much as I possibly can, but also to be able to grow as much as I can. What do you think is the best thing for me to be able to do here to be able to help the program?’ And to that point I had been an analyst everywhere I had been – so I didn’t have to take any classes, I didn’t have to worry about any GA stuff, I didn’t have to worry about any of those things. And Coach looked at me and he said, ‘with the capabilities of what the graduate assistant is able to do, I think that’s the best thing for you because it allows you to basically be an on-the-field coach, the only thing you can’t do is go on the road and recruit. I want you to be in the box, I want you to be a coach on the field, I want you to be an active recruiter inside the building.’”

Sunseri had a bit more stability with his prior roles at Florida State and Tennessee, so the graduate assistant route was not what he was expecting Saban to recommend. But he trusted his mentor.

“Coming from somewhere where I was making good money at Tennessee, and then going to where I had only $1400 a month as a GA and having to take classes, at first, I was shocked. But I sat there and said, ‘yes sir’, and I didn’t realize how much it was going to help me.”

For the next two years, Sunseri would work as a graduate assistant under his coaching idol and absorb as much as he possibly could.

“To be able to sit in those rooms and be able to hear how he was able to be focused in on the process, be result-oriented, and make sure you are attacking each and every day to hold your standard and accountability to the highest level – those were all things I was able to take away from him. I implement all those things into today’s process and carry it over for our quarterbacks now.”

Sunseri left Alabama to join Cignetti’s staff at James Madison in 2021, but he continues to carry the lessons he learned from Saban along with him – just like Cignetti does, and just like every coach that has worked under him does.

“I really can never thank him enough for the opportunity he gave me, the lessons he gave me, and the standard of how to operate.”

The Hoosiers kickoff spring practice on March 21st and will hold their spring game on Thursday, April 18th at 8pm.