Head Coach Curt Cignetti sat down with “Voice of the Hoosiers” Don Fischer 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 heading into their matchup against a struggling Penn State team on Saturday.
Cignetti opened by giving his thoughts on Indiana’s 55-10 win at Maryland last Saturday, saying, “We didn’t get off to the best start offensively, turned it over the first series, defense did a great job of holding them to a field goal. You know our defense has done a really good job of that this year, holding people to field goals. I think they have only given up 7 or 8 touchdowns the whole year… we had the ball at the minus 7 and went 93 yards in 13 plays. From that point on we really took control and scored the last 35 points in the game for a dominant win.”
Part of that dominance was due to the defense’s ability to take the ball away from the Terrapins. “I was really glad to see defensively we created five turnovers, and Maryland was #1 in the country in turnover ratio going in. That stat means a lot to us because turnovers equal points on average about 3 points a turnover. So that was a net result of 21 points.” Cignetti explained.
Coach Cignetti went on to praise his team’s consistency this season saying, “All three phases have been consistent this season, and that’s what we talk about, is consistency and performance one play at a time… you get in the habit of doing that from the first play to the last play…What I give our team a lot of credit for is that they have really bought in to the message and made a great attempt to play the first play and the last play of the game the same, and I think it shows up.”
A large part of that consistency has been due to the experience that this Indiana team has. “We’re a veteran team, with a lot of good leaders, and the guys have the right stuff… we’ve been able to build off of our successes and get better, and with success comes confidence and belief and it snowballs.” Cignetti said.
While Cignetti is thrilled with the way the Hoosiers’ season has been going, he wants to make sure that his team does not become complacent. “But you’ve got to make sure when you’re having all this success— that’s a good thing—but everything in this game is earned, not given. You can’t take momentum and carry it over to the next week; you’ve got to earn it everyday. You earn it by the amount of time you put in, your focus, your work ethic, and that takes commitment and discipline. Because you have got to prepare to put yourself in the best position Saturday, and you’ve got to put it in between the white lines.” He explained.
Turning his attention to this Saturday’s game at Penn State, Cignetti said, “I mean, they were preseason ranked between #1 and #3 in the country for a reason… I look at them the last two games; since Terry Smith has been the head coach, they went to Iowa, and they went to Ohio State. Those are two tough road games right there. They led Iowa almost the entire game… and Iowa won it with 3:30 to go. That was a hard-fought game; they played with a lot of energy. Then they went to Ohio State and it was a 17-14 game at halftime.”
While Penn State’s season may not be going the way anyone had expected, Cignetti knows that this is still a team with a lot of dangerous playmakers. “They’ve got players; their new quarterback is getting better every game; highly recruited guy out of Ohio that set a lot of records… Two great running backs—I’m impressed with the offensive line…and defense, they have a lot of [great] players on defense. I know what the paper says, but let me tell you, this is a really good football team we’re playing.” He explained.
With that, the show came to an end as Coach Cignetti highlighted the Bloomington community’s embrace of the football team, saying, “Definitely want to keep [winning] and keep this place sold out.”