What Indiana's Defense is Getting with Curt Cignetti
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Image: Indiana Athletics
Written by T.J. Inman
For a head coach with an offensive background, Curt Cignetti’s teams sure do play good defense. The Dukes were tied for second in the country in sacks per game (3.7) and were second in the country in yards per rush allowed (2.1). Those two key stats helped them hold opponents to 19.9 points per game, the 21st best mark in the country. It was a continuation of what JMU did in 2022 when they held opponents to 22.3 points per game and were again tied for second in the nation in sacks per game (3.6).
The defensive coordinator at James Madison for the past two seasons, Bryant Haines, was the co-defensive coordinator for the three years prior to that. Haines has been with Cignetti at IUP, Elon and JMU. Prior to that, Haines was a linebacker at Ball State and began his coaching career at Manchester College in 2009. He had stops at Adrian College, Indiana (yes, ironically, he was at IU in 2012) and Ohio State as a linebackers coach in 2013. Haines routinely has his defenses in the top 25 nationally in rush defense and sacks. If there is an area of concern with the defense, it is pass defense. JMU was only 59th in opponent completion percentage (60.32%) and 127th in passing yards allowed. That’s concerning but the context of that stat has to be considered. Teams could not run successfully on James Madison and they were often playing behind on the scoreboard. As a result, James Madison faced the second-most pass attempts per game in the country. If you look at opponent passer rating, James Madison ranks 38th in the country so while the pass defense is not where the run defense was for JMU under Haines, it is not the red flag it appears to be. With those numbers out of the way, the defensive structure is clearly a good one under Curt Cignetti. Just what kind of defense can IU fans expect to see? While we can’t know for sure if Curt Cignetti will see a need to attack Big Ten offenses differently than how he approached Sun Belt offenses, we can analyze how his defenses have lined up in the recent past.
Bryant Haines deploys a 4-3 base defense with the use of “rovers”. Typically, a “rover” is another term for a hybrid linebacker and safety. IU fans will know this type of position as the “husky”. The Dukes get a lot of pressure on the quarterback but they don’t typically use exotic blitz packages to get that pressure. In 2023, lineman Jalen Green played nine games and had 15.5 sacks and Jamree Kromah had ten sacks. Sophomore lineman Mikail Kamara had 7.5 sacks and junior James Carpenter had four sacks. They got a total of six sacks from non-linemen. In 2022, the vast majority of the sacks came from linemen as well. The top two tacklers on the 2023 JMU defense were linebackers Aiden Fisher (sophomore) and Jailin Walker (junior). Defensive coordinator Bryant Haines also was the position coach for the linebackers.
While I was unable to study every game Haines was the defensive coordinator for, the sample size I did watch showed a decent amount of quarters coverage from the Dukes. This type of defense deploys seven defensive backs. For James Madison, that meant “rovers” that were quick linebackers plus a few cornerbacks and then a pair of safeties. The safeties coach for JMU for the past three seasons is Marcus Hall-Oliver. Hall-Oliver was a graduate assistant with the defensive line at IU during the 2019 season before going to James Madison. In addition to coaching safeties, Hall-Oliver is the recruiting coordinator for Curt Cignetti. The stars of the JMU defense the past two seasons have been on the defensive line and it coincides with the arrival of defensive line coach Pat Kuntz. In his first season, JMU was second nationally in rushing defense, tackles for loss per game and first down defense and fourth in the country in sacks per game. That continued in 2023. Despite star lineman Jalen Green playing only nine games, he led the FBS with 15 sacks. Kuntz is from Indiana, graduated from Roncalli High School and was a graduate assistant at IU from 2016 to 2018. Kuntz would be an extremely good hire to the IU staff.
The secondary coaches include corners coach Jarred Holley and rovers coach Eddie Whitley Jr. Holley was hired by Cignetti before the 2023 season after spending his previous two seasons at North Texas. Eddie Whitley Jr. was hired in 2020 and worked with safeties before transitioning to rovers ahead of the 2021 season. Neither of them have been with Cignetti at other stops and both are young coaches.
Curt Cignetti’s defenses get after the quarterback and they stop the run. Defensive coordinator Bryant Haines, who appears to be coming to Bloomington with Cignetti, is a hot-name in the coaching industry and he is an outstanding addition to the IU program. Hoosier Huddle will continue to provide coverage as Curt Cignetti rounds out the rest of his coaching staff.