Opponents Just Can’t Hang: How Curt Cignetti has Conditioned Indiana to Bury Teams

Written by Alec Keezer

The #8 Indiana Hoosiers are a damn good football team.

Even if you’ve been living under a rock, the #8 next to Indiana’s name tells you everything you need to know about how this football season is going.

No, it’s not something we’re used to seeing. 

This is new.

It’s not just that Indiana is a good football team, it’s how they’re doing it. You could make the argument that this past weekend against Michigan State was their worst game. 

They won by 37. 

I would argue their worst game was Week 1 vs FIU, a game they won by three touchdowns.

The Hoosiers have flat out buried teams.

They do damage early, often, and continuously throughout the game.

(This chart helps demonstrate just how potent the Hoosiers offense has been, and it’s from before the Michigan State game).

The defense, especially as of late, has gained strength as the game goes on as well. 

Since the Week 7 Bye Week, the Hoosiers have allowed a TOTAL of 10 points in the second half (they’ve only allowed 34 total points). Conversely they’ve scored 68 points in the second half (and 134 total).

This includes a 56-7 trouncing of Matt Rhule’s crockpot, a 31-17 victory over Washington with Tayven Jackson at the helm, and a 47-10 obliteration of Michigan State after trailing for the first time all season.

Curt Cignetti was asked about his team’s ability to wear team down over 60 minutes:

“That’s what we preach. Never being satisfied. They’ve responded. They’ve been able to kind of compartmentalize and have an edge, good competitive edge going into the game; regardless of what the score is… the standard is the standard. We’re doing a pretty good job of that first play to last play.”

Yes, obviously they’re playing hard, but there’s more to it. You can play hard and still not win (see Nebraska). You can be well coached and still not win (see Nebraska). You can have all the resources in the world and still not win (see Nebraska).

Indiana has several things working in its favor right now: 1) Curt Cignetti sets an elite standard and will not accept anything less 2) the strength and conditioning staff is phenomenal, & 3) the staff recruits high character, high quality individuals.

Coach Cig has been nothing short of a savior for Indiana Football. He’s come in and completely changed the culture and the mindset of the program. 

Everything starts with the man in charge, and Cignetti will accept nothing less than elite execution. The guy stalks complacency. Just listen to the way he talks about heading into the locker room if the team is up big, or the way he talks about stalking the sideline, or the way he talks about football in general (if you haven’t seen Coach Cig’s interview with Hoosiers Connect… I’ll see you in 35 minutes). It is not an option to be average under Curt Cignetti. Average means you’re not doing everything you possibly can to win, and this guy wants to win. When your standard is the highest possible level you have to adapt, or you just won’t be around. Find me another coach who’s going to be watching his team lead a game by 30 and produce this face. The guy is a machine. He demands excellence because that’s how he operates. The team is fully bought in, and it shows in the way they play.

Pat McAfee hit the nail on the head on College GameDay when he highlighted strength coach Derek Owings and the strength staff (if you haven’t seen that yet, I highly encourage you to check that out here). Quite simply put, we have one of, if not, the best strength and conditioning staff in the country. The Hoosiers are ready to go each week. I think the biggest feather in the cap of the S&C staff is that Indiana had NOBODY on the injury report last week. Not one person. The boys look fast, physical, and relentless. The strength of this team is in the trenches and that starts in the weight room. These guys don’t get tired, they’re physical, and they play pissed off no matter what the score is. It’s a mentality that has to be bred long before the first snap. The strength and conditioning team is a huge part of why these guys are able to keep pushing at 100% for four quarters.

At the end of the day, you can have the best coaching in the world, if you don’t have the right players, it means nothing. Curt Cignetti and his staff know who they’re looking for and how to get them on campus. This staff has proven over and over again (this time at IU) that it excels at identifying and recruiting highly talented players with strong work ethics, strong production, and chips on their shoulders. Just look at the current roster (I started to type everyone out and realized I was just writing out the roster lol). Besides four guys on the offensive line (Carter Smith, Drew Evans, Mike Katic, and Bray Lynch), one on the defensive line (Lanell Carr Jr), and two guys in the secondary (Amare Farrell and Jamier Johnson), the other 15 starters were recruited by this staff.

Take a guy like Elijah Sarratt for example. Sarratt began his career at the Division II level, he’s now performing at an All B1G level. Shawn Asbury II began his collegiate career at Boston College before transferring to Old Dominion. He’s been dominant at safety for the Hoosiers and has gotten stronger as the season’s progressed. Aiden Fisher and Jalin Walker are both heat seeking missiles. They’re doing the exact same things they did last season even with the step up in competition. The mixture of talent this staff brought in, along with the guys that bought into the new staff and stuck around has created a unique hunger. All of these guys want to win. It’s all they talk about. And the production speaks for itself.

I mean, we’re talking about a team that’s coming off 15 TFLs and 7 sacks this past weekend. The yardage allowed by quarter was comical; 128 in the first, 50 in the second, 27 in the third, and 0, ZERO, in the fourth. 

When Michigan State sputtered out of gas, Indiana scored two more touchdowns.

You have to remember, Curt Cignetti took a long road to get here. 

He left Alabama to take a D2 Head Coaching job. He left IUP to take over an Elon team that had never done anything remotely positive on a football field and beat James Madison within two years. He left James Madison to take an Indiana job you couldn’t double peoples’ salaries to take. 

Naturally, he’s on track to make the playoffs and has Indiana in a position to potentially host a playoff game, or even secure a first round bye.

Why does Indiana bury teams?

It’s because they prepare relentlessly to execute at a high level over and over again and have shown the ability to replicate their success against any opponent regardless of talent level, hype level, or any other unnecessary distractions.

The answer is Curt Cignetti.