Coach Q&A: Curt Cignetti reacts to Indiana's Week 3 win over Indiana State

Indiana football head coach Curt Cignetti spoke with the media Friday night following Indiana’s Week 3 win over Indiana State.

Below is his full Q&A, as well as a full transcript of the conversation (to be added once it becomes available).

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CURT CIGNETTI: Okay, so the message today to the coaches and the team: Mental intensity and urgency equals energy. And we wanted to play one play at a time like it was a game on the line, regardless of the competitive circumstances. But urgency and mental intensity. And that it would come from the coaches. If it came from the coaches at all times, the players would feed off of it.

So I think we got better week two. I think we got better week three. I don’t think defense gave up a first down until four minutes to go in the second quarter and then we pulled them pretty early in the third.

So I thought Indiana State did come out early and played hard and flew around. We just had more bullets in our gun than they did. We emptied the bench and played a lot of guys.

Wasn’t pleased with a lot of the penalties early. We did make a lot of explosive plays in the game.

Q. You started Zen over Benson on the offensive line. What went into that decision? And Benson was obviously in in the second half.

CURT CIGNETTI: Benson was not available for the first half. Violation of team rules and regulations.

Q. You probably don’t know much but any sense, with Lee Beebe, what happened on that play?

CURT CIGNETTI: I think it was noncontact. And we’ll find out more Sunday or Monday, I guess.

Q. Big night for Omar Cooper. You talked about him since you’ve been here, about his potential. I guess is that kind of what you’re talking about? What were you pleased most about with his game tonight?

CURT CIGNETTI: What I was pleased most about was his production — and what was his production? Omar Cooper. 10 for 207, four touchdowns — that’s a pretty good days work.

I think they had a hard time out with him on the perimeter obviously and we got him the ball. There was some space and he took advantage of it.

Q. I know this one just ended but obviously everybody is talking about week four showdown, two ranked teams, prime time. Just your early thoughts on having a match-up like this in your home stadium?

CURT CIGNETTI: I’m sure it will be electric. I’ll think about it. Tomorrow the coaches are off, players have trainer check-in. And we’ll get back to it next week.

Q. Stephen Daley had the big tackle on the fake punt and then another sack. Can you talk about his production and then what you saw on that fake punt that allowed him to make that stop?

CURT CIGNETTI: Well, he’s been improving and getting better every week. Feel good about that. Him and Wyatt were big post-spring additions. They faked the punt because we jumped offsides the play before, on the punt block, which was an undisciplined penalty.

And he made a nice play on it. I can’t tell you exactly what happened. I didn’t have a great angle. But we got the ball back in plus territory.

Q. You’ve spent the last few weeks talking about the things your team needs to clean up on the edges, details down the road. I know you haven’t watched the tape yet tonight but do you feel your team made progress in that area tonight or do you have concerns going forward?

CURT CIGNETTI: I think I said that already. We accomplished what we wanted to accomplish tonight, and the defense last week was kind of a point of emphasis for me and I expected us to have a dominant performance, and we did. We swarmed the ball.

I wasn’t real pleased with the penalties on special teams, the penalties on offense with the 1s. The quarterback was 19-of-20 for 270, but threw it out there a few times when he shouldn’t have. But all in all, we took another big step forward, yeah.

Q. After Fernando kept the ball on an option, you took a timeout and were upset with him. What was behind that — you just want to keep him healthy?

CURT CIGNETTI: He made a couple of poor decisions, consecutively. And I had just alluded to throwing the ball on the RPO when he should have given it — should have handed the ball to the back on that. Started to get off rhythm in the pass game a little bit. So was just trying to reel him back in a little bit. And then he made a really good play the next play.

Q. What did you learn about your team’s maturity tonight?

CURT CIGNETTI: I think we’ve taken the steps we need to take. We’ve got a lot of guys that played a lot of football. I heard a stat that we’re the most veteran team in the Big Ten in terms of career starts by far, what the stat was.

So all the teams in the past, kind of like the new quarterbacks have been able to build on their success and develop more confidence and cohesiveness and unity and develop positive intangibles which are important moving forward. But I want to put hit all in perspective. I don’t want to go sort of overboard on it.

But I thought we did tonight what we wanted to do, and I was pleased to see that. And I didn’t see anybody relaxing at any point in the game, coaches or players.

And so coaches could use a day off. They’ll get one tomorrow. Players will get an extra day and then we’ll pick it up for the next one.

Q. You talk about some of the things you want to get done, especially defensively. I think it’s 30 tackles for loss the last two games. I recognize the standard competition will go up once you get into conference play, but especially given how many new faces, experienced faces, but new faces, you had on that defensive line, do you feel that group is starting to kind of control the line of scrimmage the way that you want it?

CURT CIGNETTI: I’m sure we probably controlled it tonight, but I don’t want to make statements without watching the tape. Coach Haynes would have a better idea maybe of what was going on over there.

All I know is they didn’t have a first down until four minutes to go in the second quarter, and if we wouldn’t have pulled our defense, I don’t know if they would have had 30 yards total offense. But I think this offense was a lot different than the first two offenses we saw structurally.

And the first two offenses we saw were really capable of putting you in conflict. And we saw it with ODU on the quarterback runs, and we saw it with Kennesaw, with the tempo and a lot of different formations and looks.

So I sensed we had a good week of practice on defense and that this was a little bit more of a conventional offense, so to speak. I felt confident we’d get a really good performance, and that ought to give us confidence and belief moving forward.

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