Head Coach Curt Cignetti sat down with “Voice of the Hoosiers” Don Fischer on Thursday for another episode of “Inside IU Football.” Over the course of the hour-long show, Coach Cig spoke on how he feels the Hoosiers are playing and what he wants to see from the team ahead of their matchup with Kennesaw State on Saturday.
Cignetti opened by giving his thoughts on Indiana’s up-and-down 27-14 win over Old Dominion. “First of all, I’m not going to apologize ever for winning, cause they all count as one whether you win 3-2 or 70 to nothing…but the game did remind me a little bit of our opener last season against FIU, in which we were in a position to dominate the game. Last year it was the offense that didn’t play very well in the second half; this year, obviously, they scored on the opening play of the game.” Cignetti said.
He continued by describing what went wrong on that opening play, saying, “missed assignment, but kind of a dirty read for our defender, and then the defense really pretty much shut them down the rest of the game and created three turnovers. Until the very last play they ran the 4th and 1, we had a really bad missed assignment. [The] guy [who was] supposed to take the quarterback took the dive, and there was no one left.”
Cignetti continued by praising the play of Indiana’s special teams unit, saying, “Special teams was very good; made all their goals.The 91-yard punt return was a big play in the game. All the kickoffs went out of the end zone. The field goal hit the upright; 52 yards into the wind, [but] he’s made it from 58 in practice.”
“[The] offense for 95 yards was really good, not perfect, but inside the five was not good. Six times inside the ten, twenty points. Last year we led the country in red area touchdowns, but that’s in the past. So we’ve got to get better there…we had [ODU] down, we were in a position to knock them out, we had them on the ropes, and we didn’t do it. And that’s what frustrated me.” Cignetti said.
Despite this, Coach Cig is not worried about his team. “There’s not a whole lot to talk about with the kids; they understand where we have to improve. Now in life anytime you do something a second time, you’re always a lot better.” He said.
That second time will come this Saturday, when IU faces Kennesaw State. When asked about how the Hoosiers match up against the Owls, Cignetti said, “It’s a high uptempo offense; the quarterback obviously spent some time here: Dexter Williams. They can go warp speed really, really fast; they can rattle off a lot of plays really quick, and then they’ll slow it down some…they’re pretty balanced running it and throwing it.”
Turning his attention to the Owls’ defense and special teams, Cignetti said, “Defensively they do a really nice job. They play a lot of people and they run around. I was impressed with the way they ran to the ball and tackled. The punter averages about 45 yards a punt, so [I’m] looking forward to game two.”
Cignetti wrapped up Thursday’s episode by breaking down the “play of the game” from last Saturday’s game, a new segment for this season’s show. For tonight’s show it was Jonathan Brady’s 91-yard punt return touchdown. “I thought he should have caught the ball in the air…well he played it off the bounce. We had just tremendous blocking; Clay Conner did a great job. We had so many guys do a great job on that play. It was a huge play, momentum-changing play because we were gaining a lot of yards on offense, but we were stumble-bumbling around.”
With that, Coach Cignetti ended the show as he made his final preparations before the Kennesaw State game. He made sure to highlight the importance of packing Memorial Stadium on Saturday but said, “I’ll sacrifice 5,000 fans for about 28 more points.”