McGuire, Cignetti and DeBoer take unconventional paths to CFP quarterfinals

You will never see the Texas Tech football players wearing white pants when playing on real grass. Ever.
 
This was one of the first things head coach Joey McGuire promised Zane Perry and Cayman Ancell, the pair that oversees the Red Raiders’ football equipment needs and the preparation of team uniforms. They’d offered to do anything for him — whatever he wanted, whatever he needed. And he told them there was one thing he’d never ask them to do: Deal with grass stains that seem impossible to get out.
 
“I soaked so many pants whenever I was an assistant coach in high school,” McGuire tells NBC Sports, laughing. “I was over the equipment room for nine years.
 
“It’s a funny story, but that’s where I came from. I did the laundry. I friggin’ washed jocks. I friggin’ soaked pants and got stains out of ‘em. I don’t forget that.”

And neither do his peers. While on college football’s biggest stage, so many of the coaches credit their careers to the foundation formed at the sport’s lower levels. 
 
McGuire was a longtime Texas high school football coach (and administrator) before he got hired to coach tight ends at Baylor in 2017. In the College Football Playoff quarterfinals, he’ll stand on a sideline opposite Dan Lanning, who started out as a high school assistant coach in Kansas City. In 2011, Lanning drove 13 hours through the night (and changed into a suit at a gas station at 5 a.m.) to pitch himself to then-Pittsburgh coach Todd Graham for a job. He landed a not-so-glamorous quality control position that paid $800 a month. He didn’t become a full-time FBS assistant coach until the 2016 season.
 
Elsewhere in this year’s CFP, there’s Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti, whose first head-coaching gig came at Indiana University of Pennsylvania (Division II) — and at age 49. He went from IUP to Elon to James Madison, where he took the Dukes from FCS to FBS. And then he orchestrated one of the most drastic turnarounds in college football history with the Hoosiers.
 
Those same Hoosiers will face Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer, who began his coaching career first at a local high school before becoming the offensive coordinator at Sioux Falls, his alma mater and an NAIA program. Later, after being elevated to the head coach, he won three NAIA national titles. In 2010, he became the offensive coordinator at Southern Illinois (FCS) and eventually got his first assistant gig in the FBS ranks in 2014 (at Eastern Michigan).
 
Other quarterfinal matchups include coaches with more traditional paths that wove them through college football blueblood programs, though it’s worth pointing out that Kirby Smart got his start at Valdosta State (Division II), Ryan Day began his career at New Hampshire (FCS), and new Ole Miss head coach Pete Golding started his coaching career at his alma mater, Delta State (Division II). 
 
McGuire isn’t surprised to see so many coaches with small-school roots here on college football’s biggest stage. 
 
“No matter what level you're at, whether it's high school or whether it's Division III, Division II, whatever, and you're winning at a really high level, there's a reason you're doing that,” McGuire said. “With guys like that, no job was too big or too small. Like, whatever I had to do to get in, that’s what I did.”
 
Cignetti recalled Nick Saban’s reaction to his decision to leave his rather great job as the Alabama receivers coach … to go take over a Division II program that had won a total of four conference games in the two previous seasons.
 
“He had some questions about whether that would be a very good move for me,” Cignetti said. “But I was just ready to kind of run my own show. I was hitting 50, and, really, I started my full-time coaching career at age 23 at Rice University when they were in the Southwest Conference. So, I'd been doing it 28 years. I was just ready for something different. 
 
“I respected his opinion, but I decided to make the move. I can't say there weren't many mornings early on where I wondered what I did because it was such a tremendous, radical change. But at the end of the day, it prepared me for where I am today.”
 
Cignetti has said that a lot over the past two years. It’s why he told everyone to Google him; he does win at every level, no matter how few resources a football program might have. He builds his staff a certain way (and those staffers tend to stick with him through multiple stops) and evaluates talent after hours and hours of watching tape. He prioritizes fundamentals and basics, and his teams don’t beat themselves. Now, he has more resources and better players than he’s had at any of his previous head-coaching gigs — and it’s not surprising that his approach is working in Bloomington, too.
 
“I always, always thought that Bill Snyder was the guy that probably had the biggest turnaround in college football when he took over K-State,” McGuire said. “Cignetti has done that, probably at an even bigger level with what he’s done at Indiana.” 
 
DeBoer said he wouldn’t trade his career path for anything, either. It helps him appreciate the moment he’s in, here at Alabama. But it’s also helped shape him into the head coach he is — because he became at age 30 and had to hire a staff, manage a roster and handle all of his other responsibilities at such a young age. At his alma mater no less. That’s helped position him well to hire people with the right expertise and knowledge as the sport (and job) has evolved. 
 
He thinks there’s another advantage to having NAIA roots — he’s already experienced playoff football with multiple rounds (and on-campus games to boot).
 
“With the playoffs the way they are, us having to go four rounds — I’ve been through that many, many years, whether it was as an assistant or as a head coach, going back to Sioux Falls days,” DeBoer said. “I think all of it goes into just being built for the moments that come.”
 
As for McGuire himself, his career trajectory has led to more than simply avoiding grass stains. He believes his experience in the behemoth that is Texas high school football uniquely prepared him for the challenges of the transfer portal age. 
 
“I told (Texas Tech athletic director) Kirby Hocutt in my interview, ‘Hey, no disrespect, but I was in charge of more football players from seventh grade to seniors than what you have in your entire program,’ ” McGuire said. “And you're dealing with a lot of people recruiting your athletes. So, on a different scale, I was already kind of was doing some of that stuff I do now, trying to keep my players.” 
 
Hocutt took a chance on McGuire, and it’s certainly paid off, with the program’s first-ever Big 12 title and now its first CFP appearance. But Hocutt knows what other athletic directors know: There is no perfect blueprint for any coaching hire. Even the ones that seem like slam dunks or cultural fits can blow up spectacularly.
 
But maybe those making hires can learn a lesson from the coaches they see on sidelines this week. Or they could listen to Cignetti’s advice and Google ‘em. Turns out there are some great coaches with nontraditional paths that have proven they can win — and win big — on the sport’s biggest stage.