A Morgantown High School alum and former West Virginia Mountaineers quarterback has won the College Football Playoff (CFP) National Championship.
On Monday night, the Indiana Hoosiers capped the 2025-2026 season by capturing the program's first-ever national championship on the gridiron as they defeated the Miami (FL) Hurricanes in a 27-21 win. In that endeavor, they were led by head coach Curt Cignetti – who started his path to greatness in Morgantown.
Former Mountaineer Curt Cignetti Captures National Championship
Cignetti is the son of Frank Cignetti Jr., who served as the WVU football head coach from 1976-1979. A Pittsburgh native, the younger Cignetti was in high school when his dad took the job at West Virginia, and finished out his high school career attending school at Morgantown High and playing quarterback for the Morgantown Mohicans.
He then decided to follow his dad and join the program at WVU in 1979 – and after the school parted ways with his father after his freshman season, Cignetti decided to stick around the program and finish his career in Morgantown, playing for the Mountaineers from 1979-1982.
Cignetti spent 27 years bouncing between various assistant coach roles at the college level, finally getting his break at the Division 2 level as a head cach with Indiana (PA), where his father spent 20 years coaching and led the program to 13 playoff appearances. Cignetti then spent stints at Elon at the FCS level and James Madison as they transitioned from FCS to FBS, before landing at Indiana after the 2023 season.
The Hoosiers have an all-time wining percentage of just over 42 percent and had never finished a season in their 135-year history with 10-or-more wins before Cignetti took over the head coaching role.
In the past two years, Cignetti led the Hoosiers to a 27-2 record and two CFP appearances, including a perfect 16-0 record this season that saw the Hoosiers win the Big Ten Championship before capturing the ultimate prize on Monday. The team's quarterback, Fernando Mendoza, also took home the Heisman Trophy this season, and Cignetti has been named Coach of the Year in back-to-back seasons by the Associated Press, the Walter Camp Football Foundation, ESPN/ABC (Home Depot Coach of the Year), Sporting News, and the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA).