It is the first Thursday of the 2025 football season, and that means it is time for Head Coach Curt Cignetti to sit down with “Voice of the Hoosiers” Don Fischer for the first episode of “Inside IU Football.” Over the course of the hour-long show, Coach Cig reflected on IU’s historic 2024 season, how he feels the 2025 team is progressing, and what he wants to see from the team heading into their matchup with the Old Dominion Monarchs this weekend.
Coach Cignetti started the show by giving his thoughts on the Hoosiers’ historic 2024 in which they reached the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff. “A lot of firsts, and the fans were a big part of it; the stadium was rocking, and I knew if we built it they would come.”
When asked about how making the CFP affected recruiting, Cignetti said, “Oh, there’s no doubt, winning opens a lot of doors. So you get a higher caliber of prospect walking through that you might be able to get to come to school here.”
Cignetti quickly shifted the focus from last season to the season ahead, saying, “Last year is over. Part of creating a winning culture is turning the page. We’ve turned the page with a lot of new guys…and I see a lot of progress, and it will be interesting to see what we’ve got.”
Elaborating on this, Coach Cig said, “Our guys, we have such great guys on our team that returned, they embrace these transfers and make them feel at home… I think we’ve got a pretty close team; we’ve got some great leaders on this team. But there’s nothing that helps culture like winning.”
Coach Cignetti then began to preview the Hoosiers’ upcoming matchup with ODU this Saturday, saying, “They’ve [ODU] had some good years. They’ve beaten Virginia Tech twice in recent memory… [ODU] opened up last year at South Carolina, that’s a hard place to play… It was 23-19 final score. So I’ve done everything I could to get our guys’ attention; I think we have it.”
Cignetti then talked about the Monarch’s offense, saying, “They’re a little bit like Tennessee; they’re really going to spread you out with wide splits, and use the box count to their advantage when the numbers are in their favor, they’re going to run it. They do a good job; they’ve got some nice schemes… the two quarterbacks last year ran for almost 1,000 yards.”
While this offense is imposing, it is really this Monarchs’ defense that has proven to be a schematic nightmare for teams. “Their defense is just different. It’s a 3-3, five DBs…and they blitz quite a bit. They have like, 80 snaps of cover zero blitz in twelve games, which is a lot. That is when they are bringing one more than you can block, and they’re playing man-to-man all over the field, but you’ve got to get the ball off, and they’re going to stand there at six yards and try and collision your receivers and grab ‘em… I’m not going to call them a preparation nightmare, but we’ve spent quite a bit of time on them.”
Coach Cignetti wrapped up the show by talking about his own offensive line, saying, “We’ve got a lot of veterans that have played a lot of football. Coogan started at Notre Dame last year… Carter Smith, this is his third year as a starter… really good player. Drew Evans is back at left guard, Bray Lynch returns at right guard.”
Cignetti saved the biggest news for last, announcing that Khalil Benson would be starting at right tackle. “Khalil Benson started at right tackle the year before I was hired here, and when I got hired here, he was already in the portal. [He] went to Colorado and heard such great things about the new Indiana: he wanted to come back with his buddy Louis Moore, so right now he is the starting right tackle.”
With that, Coach Cignetti ended the show as he makes his final preparations before IU kicks off their season this Saturday.