Indiana football head coach Curt Cignetti addressed the media on Monday afternoon for his usual game week press conference following this past Saturday’s loss to Ohio State and ahead of this coming weekend’s trip to Michigan.
Cignetti spent much of his press conference answering questions about the Buckeyes, which isn’t surprising given it was Indiana’s first loss since 2024. Some of his answers painted a bigger picture than that less-than-ideal afternoon.
Here’s five notes on his remarks.
Mistakes piling up against Ohio State
The last
play was painful for a lot of reasons, but it’s not necessarily why Indiana lost the game. The Hoosiers were down in that spot for a lot of reasons, as Cignetti said.
A promising drive in the second quarter that could’ve put the Hoosiers up multiple scores turned into nothing when a failed third down conversion attempt turned into a rare miss from Nico Radicic. Davion Chandler fumbled what was initially a big gain to open Indiana’s first series of the second half. Indiana didn’t properly account for the pass rush on the next drive and Josh Hoover fumbled himself after taking a big hit.
All of that, and Indiana was still, somehow, in position to take the lead there late. Cignetti takes that as promising with a need to clean up those mistakes.
“I think we were all feeling pretty bad after the game that night,” Cignetti said. “I woke up, you know, with kind of a new perspective. We proved that we’re capable. Just got clean up a couple things and get a little better in certain areas.”
Struggles on the ground
Indiana’s running game looked like a strength early on with huge performances against Northwestern and Rutgers in Big Ten play. The past two weeks have been a complete flip with the Hoosiers managing just 3 yards per carry against Nebraska and 2.5 yards per carry against Ohio State.
Cignetti said that starts up front with the offensive line and they’re looking to create more explosive plays on the ground, as they were earlier this season. He also noted Indiana was in “throw mode” between the lack of production on the ground and the game state.
If Hoover is expected to produce, he’s going to need the help in the run game that Cignetti mentioned all those months ago as an asset.
Strong play from the defense
Indiana’s defense played more than well enough for the Hoosiers to win the game this past weekend, which was a huge part of why they were in position to retake the lead late.
“I thought it was an outstanding effort and we’re going to need another one this week,”
The staff is going to need to figure out how to keep the offense mistake-free and productive in order to help out that defense, starting immediately with this weekend’s matchup. This isn’t a game Indiana can really afford to drop given its apparent goals for the season.
Which brings us to:
Preparing for Michigan’s QB situation
Michigan benched Bryce Underwood in favor of freshman quarterback Tommy Carr, who led the Wolverines to a win over Penn State on Saturday. Kyle Whittingham has been mum on what that means for this weekend, not naming a starter during his own media availability.
Cignetti didn’t see too much that was different schematically between the Underwood-led offense and that quarterbacked by Carr. He noted Underwood’s arm strength and abilities as a runner and said Carr played well against Penn State.
He also said both Underwood and Carr could share the field at the same time, something Whittingham did during his time at Utah. There’s gonna be a lot to prepare for.
On that one field goal…
Cignetti was asked about that 55-yard attempt from Radicic on fourth down, which came after a timeout. He was originally in favor of going for it but didn’t like the look Ohio State showed on defense and called the timeout before opting for the field goal.
He added Radicic has been working on his range, that the kick was right down the middle and it would’ve been good from a bit closer. He had thought of kicker Paddy McAteer, who has a bit more range, but opted for Radicic as the kick was just inside his range.
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