Head Coach Curt Cignetti sat down with “Voice of the Hoosiers” Don Fischer for a special Wednesday edition 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 heading into their matchup against Indiana State on Friday.
Cignetti opened by giving his thoughts on Indiana’s 56-9 win over Kennesaw State. “We improved, and we were able to distance ourselves from the opponent, which is something we couldn’t do even though we dominated the first game…Defensively, the first four series we didn’t allow a first down, and the last four we only allowed one, but in between there is a lot of stuff that we have to clean up.” Cignetti said.
Cignetti expanded upon this, saying, “Really the play of the game was Jamari Sharpe strippin’ the guy. Because we’re up 28 to 9, and they hit a slant, and they are going to be down there deep, and he strips him at the end of the play. And that was one of those plays where we weren’t lined up right… So we’ve got to get better. We’ve had a good week of practice on defense, I think, and I expect us to play well.”
Coach Cignetti then shifted his attention to the offense and specifically the performance of starting quarterback Fernando Mendoza, saying, “I thought he was throwing the ball on rhythm; accurate. You know, his quarterback efficiency rating…was much higher. There’s still room for improvement; there always is, but he should walk out of that game with a lot of confidence.”
Part of the reason for Mendoza’s ability to get in rhythm was the success in the run game. When asked about the production of all three running backs, Cignetti said, “The backs are learning well, they run hard, they all have talent, and when you’ve got three of them, it keeps them fresh and keeps the hits off them too. We really like what’s going on there and gotta keep going.”
Cignetti then turned his attention to the short week ahead and the Hoosiers’ matchup with the Indiana State Sycamores at 6:30pm on Friday. The Sycamores, who have struggled in recent years, have gotten off to a hot 2-0 start this season. “They’re 2-0 this year; they’ll play better teams on their schedule than the two teams they’ve played in the first two games. I see a really well-coached team; defensively they’ve got some really good players…offensively they’re very balanced. Their quarterback got hurt in the second quarter, the backup came in and played well, we expect to see him… They’re gonna come in here and be excited about playing, and I want to see us play a clean football game.”
Cignetti expanded on this, saying, “I told the team on Monday, ‘We’re gonna find out a lot about our team, how mature we are in terms of how we handle this week, because we need to improve.’ We’ve got a lot of new guys, and we’ve got people that need to learn how to do things like championship programs do things, day in, day out… you’ve gotta coach all the little things with this team; it’s a little different than last year.”
“We’ve got a lot more guys that are new, that came from .500-type programs, and they don’t know what they don’t know sometimes. A lot of them are responding and getting better, but there’s a couple of them that we’ve got to find a way to reach… It’s meeting attitude, it’s consistency and performance at practice, it’s being locked in when you’re not in there… but we’re getting there.” Cignetti continued.
With that, Coach Cignetti ended the show as he made his final preparations before the Indiana State game.