Indiana football’s first two teams under head coach Curt Cignetti were afforded the tremendous luxury of several upperclassmen who had experience with his programs either at James Madison or in his first season in Bloomington.
That’s less true for this group, something Cignetti has been mindful of as the Hoosiers get started with spring practices.
“I feel like we probably have more work to do with this group than the first two teams, simply because there’s so many that we don’t have a one-to-three-year
relationship with, whereas even the first year there were quite a few we knew very well,” Cignetti said during a press conference on Thursday.
The Hoosiers lost three running backs including starters Roman Hemby and Kaelon Black, their two top receivers in Elijah Sarratt and Omar Cooper Jr., top tight ends Riley Nowakowski and Holden Staes, two starting offensive linemen in Pat Coogan and Kahlil Benson, the bulk of their edge rotation, starting linebacker Aiden Fisher and, last but not least, several starters in the defensive secondary including top cornerback D’Angelo Ponds and safety Louis Moore.
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Needless to say, that’s a fair amount of roster attrition. Indiana has plenty of experience coming back with multiple top signings in the transfer portal and several true freshmen, but all of those pieces need to jel and that starts now.
Cignetti and the rest of Indiana’s staff were helped greatly in that process with leaders like Fisher, Ponds, Sarratt and others helping to set a cultural foundation for previous new signings and holdovers from Tom Allen’s last few teams. There’s simply less of those guys this year, necessitating more work for the staff.
Indiana has plenty of time for all of that jelling to take place, practice just started, but Cignetti has as good of a track record for making that happen as anyone in the sport. If there’s anyone to trust with getting a culture to set in, it’s him.
