Indiana football head coach Curt Cignetti addressed the media following the Hoosiers’ 19-15 loss to Ohio State at home on Saturday afternoon.
Here’s the full transcript, courtesy of ASAPSports.
CIGNETTI: Have to get ready for Michigan, prep for Michigan.
That was a tough one not to win. I thought our kids gave great effort and fight and hung in there and put ourselves in position to win the close game. Had so many opportunities to get it done, not only at the end of the game, but throughout the game.
Just too many missed opportunities on offense; I thought our defense really played well. They had their backs against the wall quite a few times and maybe we kick a field goal or something of that nature.
Special teams, you know, obviously we had the field goal; 55 yarder was just a little bit out of his range with that wind condition. He hit it good. Would’ve been right down the middle.
Offense came out in the third quarter, turned it over the first two series. A critical moment in that game — you know, there was a lot of them — about four and a half minutes to go in the second quarter, we’re driving, got a lot of momentum, take the lead, and we had it and couldn’t make it happen.
That’s when we hit the crossbar. And then they go down and score. I thought we did a nice job regrouping there at halftime, you know, kind of similar to last week, and then had more adversity right off the bat in the third quarter but the defense just wouldn’t give in.
And then the offense got it rolling. You all you saw the last play. Fourth and four, we were expecting a house blitz. You never really know. You’re rolling the dice.
And that’s our blitz check that we ran. Just called it. They got us on it that one other series in the third quarter on the fourth down where he got sacked down in the red area.
We had it and we just didn’t make it happen. So it’s a hard one to swallow. Learn from it and move on.
Q: I know you want to review the film, but you talked about missed opportunities on offense. Anything you sensed recurring there on offense or different issues that prevented you from cashing in on some of the opportunities?
CIGNETTI: I think most of it was — we had a lot of pass game opportunities and we didn’t take advantage of enough of them.
Q. I guess just to what extent, like were there ever moments where you were almost just surprised at the small mistakes, a fumble, an untimely penalty, some of those missed opportunities, just the way they added up on your team today?
CIGNETTI: Well, at that point I was really surprised we didn’t make that happen at the end of the half when we were down there on — I don’t know what down it was. Third and four maybe; about the 12th. You know, put our three receivers to the field on the left hash and they got all their coverage over there and something went wrong on it, but both guys are wide open and we didn’t make it happen.
And then we hit the crossbar and they went down and scored at the end of the half. So really I thought the start of the thing the third quarter with us turning it over twice was just more of the same.
Finally we regrouped and defense just kept us in it. We started making a few plays. It’s right there for the taking. Got to be able to take that one.
Q: Obviously historically you guys are really good in the pass games, especially from an efficiency standpoint. Anything in particularly look at and say, okay, the 20 for 40 was because of A, B, C?
CIGNETTI: I’m going to defer on that. Today I got to watch the tape. I do have to watch the tape.
Q: You mentioned how well the defense kind of stood up. In particular Ferrell seemed to have the best game he’s ever had.
CIGNETTI: Yeah, two big interceptions, yeah. And that first one led to points. Huge. And the second one was huge, too.
And really one of the ones they got, we got great coverage on the guy and the ball was underthrown into the wind and just misjudged the ball.
Those were two big interceptions certainly.
Q: Coach, pass game got going in the fourth quarter.
CURT CIGNETTI: Uh-huh.
Q: What kept it from getting going earlier?
CIGNETTI: Execution. I mean, you got to execute. You know, and when all 11 guys do their job it tends to work. Every once in a while you may call plays not so great and get stopped.
So we had a lot of opportunity out there that we didn’t cash in on, particularly in the second half, but there was quite a bit in the first half, too.
Q: First time in a long time you’ve had to come back from a loss during in a season week over week. What’s the message? How do you do it?
CIGNETTI: You know, I told the kids it was a tough one. Really proud of the effort. We gave ourselves a chance to win and certainly had the opportunity to. Sun comes up tomorrow, and get ready for Michigan. Learn from the things we got to learn from.
And it’s still all ahead of us. We can accomplish anything we want, all our goals, except going undefeated.
Q: Josh was high on some passes across the middle of the field and also was able to take you down on his scoring drive, almost second one late. How do you assess his performance and where do you feel like he may need to make strides to get where you want to go?
CIGNETTI: Yeah, I mean, when you play quarterback it’s all about getting the ball to the open guy on time, accurately, as quickly as possible.
So that’s the bottom line on a quarterback. If you can extend plays at plus, plus, plus on that. So we certainly had a couple misfires, but he made some nice plays, too.
I think it would be unfair for me to offer an evaluation without watching the tape. We all watched the game.
Q: I heard Coach Saban this week say when you go on a really long winning streak like he did that sometimes there can be more value in a loss that you realize at the time. Is that a philosophy you buy into?
CIGNETTI: (Smiling.) I think we kind of learned our lessons before this game, and we just weren’t good enough today it seize it.
Q: Jeremiah Smith only had two catches in the first half. You had AJ Harris starting at corner for the first time since week one. What was your overall assessment of the secondary and how they played Jeremiah Smith?
CIGNETTI: They didn’t target him much early in in the game. Knew we made some plays back there. Ferrell had those two interceptions and we missed that first drive; they went right down the field and we I believe held them to a field goal. We had a couple missed tackles. But we had some good plays back there, yeah.
Be hard for me — I think AJ made it through the whole game, but they didn’t target him as much as normal. Almost like early in the game he was sorts of the decoy.
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