It’s a custom of the college football season for head coaches across the nation to meet with the media towards the beginning of the week and discuss the prior week’s matchup and preview their upcoming test. Fans are often privy to the quotes coming out of their own team’s HQ, but what about their upcoming opponents’?
Let’s take a look at some of the quotes that Iowa’s head coach Kirk Ferentz had to say that referenced Indiana specifically in his Tuesday press conference.
Q: Opening statement
“Turning our sights to Indiana, obviously a really good football team, certainly worthy of its ranking. They come in 4-0 and playing with a lot of momentum…Indiana is a really good football team. Anybody that saw the game Saturday, you couldn’t help but be impressed. Really played well. Had a great year last year. We didn’t play them last year, but you watch them on exchange tapes, they kept popping up. So impressed with the way they played. Good personnel.
Coach Cignetti has come in and done a great job. Really upgraded their personnel last year, and beyond that they’re really well-coached. You didn’t see a game where they didn’t play hard and look like a really good football team.
From my vantage point I think they’re a better football team this year. They’ve upgraded even more with their personnel, done a good job with the transfer portal, and also developing the guys that they have on their roster.
They’re playing at a high level right now. Didn’t look like they had a flaw the other night at all. A really strong performance. It’s pretty much been that way all season long. Every game they’ve been in, they’ve been winning very decisively. Just extremely impressed. Coach Cignetti and his entire staff, and most of those guys came with him from James Madison. They have an identity, got a plan, and it’s worked out very well. A big challenge for us there.”
Q: I wanted to ask about Curt Cignetti’s quick rise and turnaround for this program. Have you ever seen a head coach be able to make that kind of adjustment for a program like Indiana and bring it to national spotlight like this?
“I’d have to think long and hard if anybody has done it. It’s been very impressive. Part of it is we’re in a new era, if you will, where it’s a little different when a coach comes in because of the portal. New coaches now can basically clear their roster out, if they choose. I’m not suggesting he did that. Then the players can transfer pretty freely.
What I’m impressed with is how many players came from JMU. I think it was in the teens last year. We didn’t play them, but I think I heard like 13, 15, something like that. But I do know this: the first bye week we had last year, I can’t remember who they were playing, I was kind of flipping channels and was like, I don’t know who that 13 guy is, and I looked it up, and it was a guy from JMU. A lot of their best players are guys that came from there.
I think that’s two things. Everybody always worries about recruiting. A lot of those guys that played for him at JMU I’m sure weren’t recruited by Power Four schools, yet they’re playing power football right now. 13, I mentioned him. Two of their best defensive linemen, in my opinion, are guys that played for him. They have a couple linebackers that played for him.
A lot of those guys did a good job, but the fact that those guys came with him and really gave them a good foundation, they went out and got a good quarterback from the Ohio University, a grad transfer, I believe last year. So you have more available to you in today’s age when you switch coaches.
I’m not minimizing the job they’ve done there as a coaching staff and the players that were there last year and the ones this year. It’s really impressive. And then I’ll just rattle down the road here a little bit, but one of my curiosities is when you make big roster changes, how do you get guys to play cohesively, and they’ve done that. They did it last year and they’re doing it right now, too, with a lot of new players again. That’s really impressive. That’s good coaching. They clearly have a vision of what they want to be, and it looks like it’s working really well for them.”
Q: Indiana is putting up some pretty gaudy offensive numbers. What are the biggest challenges that they present to your defense?
“Where do you want to start? It’s hard to find a weakness. It really is. I’m not saying it’s like playing Ohio State, but there’s some similarities in my mind if you look at their offense. They have a big, physical offensive line, a couple newcomers there that have helped them. Right tackle, center, I’ll start right there. I think the other three guys were there last year, although I think one of them was a transfer as well, maybe, a year ago. But they’re a big, physical offensive line, two tight ends that are very effective and the one guy made the big play the other night with the long touchdown. Then those three receivers as a group — they’re all really good individually, but as a group, it kind of takes you back to Ohio State, where pick your poison. They had two first-rounders and another guy is pretty good.
You’ve got that, and then in the backfield they have two really good running backs right now, and then the quarterback might be the best quarterback in the country. Somebody was saying he’s the leader for the Heisman. I don’t have a Heisman vote, but I’d vote for him based on what I have seen. He looks really good, too.
I think that’s part of why they’re putting up those numbers. They can run the ball, pass it, got the ability to hit the big play. The quarterback, I’ll go back to him for a second. He gets the ball out extremely quick. It’s going to be tough to even get a hand on him, and he’ll run it, but when he runs it, they have designed runs for him and then they also have — he’ll flush it out, but he’s looking down, he’ll look to maybe a throw on the run, which is tough to defend.
Then on top of it, they’re playing really good on defense. They’re very aggressive, and they’re good at playing with a lead, which they’ve pretty much been doing all season long.
I forgot about special teams, right? First touchdown was a blocked punt. Other than that, there’s no problem.”
Q: Curt Cignetti said that I think he was a GA at Pitt a few years after you were and maybe crossed paths. Is there anything you recall from coming across him then and anytime over the years?
“Truth be told, I’m older than him (laughing). But I’m more familiar with his dad. His dad was very well-known in western Pennsylvania and coached at West Virginia but had a long great career at Indiana, PA. So familiar with him.
To his point, he followed me by two years, I guess, at Pitt, two or three. I think he was there two years. When I was here coaching, every spring break I’d get in the car and we’d go back to Pittsburgh. Both Mary and I’s families were there, so we’d split time and I’d just go down to Pitt every day because it worked out timing-wise. They’d always start spring ball ahead of us, so I got to go down there and watch them practice, whatever it was, three, four times a week. So you get to meet everybody pretty much on the staff at that point. But I was there mainly to spend time with Coach Moore. That’s kind of what we did.