Few things in sports are as mythologized as halftime.
There’s the Hollywood-esque speeches, big time adjustments made over whiteboards, screaming from coaches or players and all sorts of other things. Sure,
some of that definitely happens, enough recorded halftime moments have dropped to tell you as much. But that’s not really Curt Cignetti’s style.
When No. 2 Indiana entered halftime up just 10-7 against Wisconsin, a team coming off its first conference win, you might have expected a guy like Cignetti to really light into his team. He occasionally gives off that traditional no-nonsense energy you expect from football coaches and Bloomington has definitely seen its fair share of impassioned leaders come through its athletics facilities.
That’s just not him though. He’s alluded to it a few times, this isn’t a new thing, but he mentioned his approach during his opening statement following the Hoosiers’ 31-7 win.
“What’s always worked for me in these situations and worked today again is instead of going in there and kind of rip-snorting at halftime, just telling everybody to take a deep breath, relax, have fun, go out there and play one play at a time,” Cignetti said.
It certainly worked. The Hoosiers outscored the Badgers 21-0 in the final two quarters to secure the win. Asked to elaborate on this approach, Cignetti looked back on his time as the head coach at IUP.
“It’s just something that worked for me I think my second year at IUP too,” Cignetti said. “I remember we were playing a team that had set the record for losses in a row. This team was 12-1 at the end of the regular- really good football team that I had. At home, 7-7, halftime, and it was just, hit me, and I’ve done that ever since, and it’s always worked.”
Looking back on that 2012 season at IUP, it seems Cignetti is referring to the game against Lock Haven, which was coming off of an 0-10 season in 2011. According to the box score the Crimson Hawks were leading just 7-0 at halftime in a not-too-dissimilar slow start.
IUP scored 14 points in the third quarter and 21 points in the fourth, winning 42-0. Cignetti’s method has worked more often than not, getting off to quite the start.
