Notes and Quotes From Cignetti’s 4th Fall Camp Press Conference

Indiana Football Head Coach Curt Cignetti met with the media after a practice today, August 24th.

Notes

• Kellan Wyatt and Stephen Daley can still practice
• Cignetti stresses that they weren’t in a good spot at this time last year, and feel better about it this year
• Talked about how the special teams, and how confident he is in that unit
• Talked about the corner back battle and the QB2 battle

Cignetti Quotes

Cignetti: Wyatt and Daley can practice; right now they are ineligible to play, so we’re taking that day-by-day.

Q: Do you anticipate them kind of pursuing their own legal case to try to make that happen? And you had some, you had a deal with this last year, was more how do you handle kind of their practice rush while they’re sort of in limbo like this

Cignetti: Yeah, we’re going to support them in their quest to be eligible to play. And Louis (Moore)’s situation was a little different because he could play in the games.

Q: Shifting to Josh (Hoover), you’ve talked about the process that your transfer quarterbacks go through from winter to spring to summer to fall. Where have you seen him now, with a healthy chunk of preseason to evaluate? Where do you feel like he is in that process relative to some of the players you’ve seen go through?

Cignetti: I don’t think there’s any question that he’s improved and more confident. There’s always improvement that can be made. There’s still some missed opportunities out there that can be converted and executed… if you want to make a comparison, you got to kind of look at where we were last year at this time.

We walked off the field the second scrimmage and really weren’t good at all throwing the football. Weren’t feeling very good about things. And I mean, you even look at the first game against ODU, they rip off a 75-yard touchdown the first play. Our first score was on an 89-yard punt return. I think we scored our first offensive touchdown with 340 to go in the second quarter. I think we were in the red zone six times, inside the 10 six times, and scored 17 points. So, we’ve made progress. We’re not in game prep yet, but it’s coming.

Q: With your special teams unit with Billy coming in. New long snapper. How is that unit looking? Especially in the return game as well.

Cignetti: Well, we have a lot of confidence in our specialists. Our special teams have really been a winning edge. Grant Kane does a great job. The kids really buy in. There’s a good competition between Billy (Gowers) and Quinn Warren.

And then at long snapper. Drew Clawson’s done a really nice job up to this point, and we feel like we have a good option if something would happen there, too. In the return game, you’re looking probably at Tyler Morris as a number-one punt returner right now.

The kickoff return game, when you look at it, you only have an opportunity to return about 10 to 15% of the kickoffs nowadays, and there’ll be times we fair catch it and take it on 25 can kind of name our hash, so we’ve looked at Turbo and Beebe and Martin back there, but I feel good about our special teams

Q: On the cornerback battle in particular, where does that stand in your eyes right now? What has each guy shown you to this point?

Cignetti: I think Sharp has been our number one guy. AJ (Harris) missed a couple of practices. He tweaked his knee, but expect him back soon. He’s working his way back right now. So, I would say the next seven practices will probably determine the size at the other cornerback position. They both have had their moments.

Q: You said Grant was your number two, and then there was a little bit. Have you seen those guys kind of separate themselves, and how are you guys operating there right now?

Cignetti: I would say Grant definitely has the edge for the number two. He’s an experienced guy and has had a good camp, and Tyler’s improved too. And Jacob Bell has a gun, but there are only so many reps out there.