by Michael Marot
INDIANA Hoosiers coach Curt Cignetti is starting anew this season with a familiar playbook. His new starting QB has experience & an all-conference resume. He's plugged other holes thanks to the transfer portal. He might even challenge Google to update his bio: Cignetti Still Wins.
"That's the main reason I came here" new QB Fernando Mendoza said in the spring. "He's an offensive mind, he holds everyone to a high standard, his program always wins & those two things I want--to be held to a high standard & win."
For Cignetti he helped two transfers each earn conference player of the year honors in his last two seasons at JMU, then used another, Kurtis Rourke, to deliver the most successful season in INDIANA FB history. Fernando Mendoza is next up & he might be the best of the bunch.
"This year's team has a lot of nice pieces," said Cignetti in July. "Now we've got to mold this group into a team. I like a lot of the parts. We've got to get them all thinking alike, all buying into the team vision."
Go Coach Cig!!
BEAT PURDUE
Gotta best a highly ranked opponent this year.
Gotta best a highly ranked opponent this year.
Gotta love how so many of the teams we beat last year were so highly regarded... until we beat them.
Consistent duplication over several years and then we won't be dismissed
Exactly. We can't win - we beat a highly rated team, they drop. We lose to a top team and we're dog shit.Gotta best a highly ranked opponent this year.
Gotta love how so many of the teams we beat last year were so highly regarded... until we beat them.
You'd have thought the win against Michigan and Nebraska - both of whom went on to win bowl games, would count as good wins. Especially after humiliating Nebraska with a backup playing the entire second half. Michigan was Roarke's first game after his thumb injury.
Then beating Washington convincingly with a backup QB.
2 losses to the 2 teams playing for the national championship - on their fields, with a 3rd string OG and an injured QB (we were lucky on the injury front last year).
Any SEC team, except Alabama, would be crowing about an 11-2 record against that schedule.
DANC
@bayernfan yes we do, but just as important is winning all the games where we are favored.
BEAT PURDUE