Curt Cignetti's Vision for Spring Practice Takes Form

Rich Janzaruk/Herald-Times / USA TODAY NETWORK

Written by Sammy Jacobs (@Hoosier_Huddle)

Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti is gearing up for his first spring practices as Hoosiers head coach. In recent interviews with IU broadcaster Don Fischer Cignetti has shed some light on his goals for spring football practices.

According to Cignetti the Hoosiers will kickoff the spring session on the Thursday after IU’s spring break (March 21st) and practice Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

“We'll start spring ball the first Thursday after spring break Tuesday Thursdays in the morning, Saturday, around noon, and really excited to see what kind of development we make as a team in the next two months in the strength and conditioning program.” Cignetti told Fischer.

The new Hoosier head man has some broad goals for the Hoosiers in spring practice and they are centered around changing the mindset surrounding th program.

“Improve every day. You know, it's a process. We are process oriented. Be where your feet are, focused positive energy, get the information from the meeting. Maximize the meeting. Maximize every rep. One play at a time. One rep at a time getting that habit of playing one play at a time in spring ball, so you're playing that way in the games. You get in those close games at the end you just keep that going. You're not affected by the circumstances of the game. Hopefully we can get to the point where we change the way people think during the game.” Cignetti said.

The Hoosiers were 2-4 in one score games in 2023 under Tom Allen and 6-8 in one score games since the start of the 2021 season. Flipping some of those results is the difference between success and failure.

Currently the Hoosier coaches are on the recruiting trail, leaving the new strength and conditioning coaches, led by Derek Owings to implement his program with the players.

Cignetti is “really excited to see what kind of development we make as a team in the next two months in the strength and conditioning program. I've got a great guy (Derek Owings) running it there. I think he's the best in the country. Kids have made significant progress in the past with him and I think they're gonna like the program.”

Right now Cignetti’s mission to eliminate the negative mindset in the Hoosier football program.

“There's some softness in this place that we need to eliminate. So before we have to worry about like stopping complacency when you went all the time, making sure you're not feeling too great. After all these wins. We got to get rid of this softness so we put ourselves in a position to stop complacency.” Cignetti explained.

The Hoosiers still have two months to develop with the new strength and conditioning staff before spring football starts.