Cignetti: ‘We’ve Got to Improve Our Play’

Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti had a lot to say on his weekly radio show hosted by Don Fischer on Thursday night. The Hoosiers are 2-0, ranked fourht in the nation, but Cignetti is still looking for improvements.

“We (have) got to improve our play from the first play to last play in all three phases and I’m going to be really disappointed if we come out of the game and we were sloppy,” Cignetti said towards the end of his segment.

Indiana shut out the Howard Bison 55-0 last week, but Cignetti pointed to nine or 12 plays that Indiana will need to correct before Big Ten play starts next week against Northwestern. Several plays stand out, including a holding call that wiped out a touchdown, a lost fumble and two muffed punts.

“There’s nine to 12 plays in that game that are kind of negative critical errors or critical missed assignments, or a turnover or playing against a better team and it’s a huge momentum swing against you. So, there’s nine to 12 plays that we got to cut out of our game, and I’m looking forward to seeing if we can make that happen this
week.” Cignetti added.

The Hoosiers will have their shot to correct those mistakes when they play Western Kentucky on Saturday afternoon.

Moving Marsh and Preston Around

A lot has been made about wide receiver Nick Marsh not getting the start last week, but there is a reason for that and Cignetti addressed it on Thursday.

“We can’t get Shazz Preston enough reps and even Nick Marsh, because what we did this past game is we moved Nick around a little bit,” Cignetti said. “We’re left and right at receiver for the most part and the H is
a slot and Nick played some R and we played some guys in different spots and the more we can do
that it’s going to really help us down the road. Now we’ve begun moving guys around already but we need
the two new ones, Nick and Shazz Preston to learn every position.”

Cignetti went on to say that both Marsh and Preston are learning how things are done in the Hoosier program on a day-to-day basis.

“Nick’s new and he’s still learning. We’re still trying to like work some kinks out day-in day out in terms of practice standards. I can say the same thing about Shazz Preston.” Cignetti said.

Youth Emerging as Leaders

Curt Cignetti has seen a trend develop in terms of leadership on his team. While the 2025 team was veteran laden and had over a dozen players that could be labeled captain material, this year’s squad has had a youth movement of sorts.

“I think this is the first year I’ve kind of noticed where younger guys that aren’t seniors have the opportunity to step up and be really good leaders.” Cignetti said. He mentioned Charlie Becker, Rolijah Hardy and others.