Previewing IU football season with new head coach Curt Cignetti

Coach Cignetti, it's great to have you here. Football is here. Big 10 media days are going on. What's it? What's your off season been like? I mean, this is you your first season in Bloomington? You're getting ready to take over this program just since you've been introduced. I guess we haven't caught up with you. How's it been? It's been good. I mean, you know, December, we're on record there. We all know what that was like 22 new players, 10 offensive starters in transfer portal day one, but came out December better, uh got the program going with the winter conditioning, spring ball, advanced schemes culture, how we wanna play the game. Um Summer has been good and it's time to practice. We practice in a couple of days. Uh, you get 25 permissible practices and play the first game, 12 game schedule and uh regular season. So I like where we're at, I have confidence in our team. I think we've made a lot of progress. It's hard to measure till you play, but I see it and uh I have confidence in our team when you took over this program. What stuck out to you, every new coach wants to implement their culture, their kind of core postulates of what their program should look like. What stuck out to you that needed changing because obviously no school goes through a coaching change unless change is needed. What did you see that you wanted to put your mark on kind of right away? I think anytime you inherit a program that has not met the bar, you know, you know, you're gonna have to go in there and change the way people think players support staff, people that are important to the program, that the term that help determine resources and success, uh what I didn't expect, but it's the changing dynamic of football today was like, you, you know, you walk in your office and you got 10 offensive starters in the portal and half your defense and at some one point, you're down to almost 40 scholarship guys. So that was unlike any other transition. Uh But I like it, you know, I like being GMN head coach and uh I think we used it to our advantage. You've coached at a lot of levels of college football D two. If I'm not mistaken F CS that transition to F BS, you've had success everywhere. You've been, you've made no bones about it. You see success for Indiana University football. Why are you so confident in that when it's been such a hard place to win historically? Because I have to be that's my job. I'm the leader. Right. And, uh, everybody's gonna follow my lead and, and I've had success everywhere I've been and taken over programs that were really down and one immediately year one and believe in our plan and our blueprint and, and our people and, uh, I see the progress we've made with our roster and, and the culture and the commitment from the administration, the president, our athletic director, Pam Whitten Scott Dolson. Uh, and because football nowadays, you're looking at 90% of athletic revenue, you need to be good in football. So there's no reason Indiana can't win a conference championship. Uh We're the state school, right? You're as good as you commit to be and you should never put self imposed limitations on what you can accomplish. Now, we're a big process oriented team that really won't talk much about winning the conference doing this, doing that. It's more about making the most of your opportunities in the here and now always because there's only the here and now everything else is a concept, right? And so you get better, you get worse, you never stay the same. If you're not striving, you're not getting better. If you're comfortable, you're going backwards. So we got a blueprint that's been successful and, uh we believe in it and we believe we're gonna be successful here. You talked about you like where you're at with the summer, you liked what you saw in the spring you kind of brought in your guys. You talked about the transfer portal from where it was when you took the job to kind of this remade Indiana Hoosiers football team. What excites you most about, maybe what we can look forward to this upcoming season. Well, you know, I just love football and I love the football season and you start to morph as you get close to camp. Uh because you gotta have great training camp and you gotta develop players, you gotta improve, you gotta improve the intangibles on your team. You gotta play more discipline, you gotta play smart or penalty free, you gotta execute right. Uh, figure out who can do what. And, uh, and then every week long, uh, we're gonna be fast, physical, relentless, fly around, play smart discipline and poised. That's always been our trademark and we've always been a very physical team play with great effort, least penalized team in the league and play smart. And, uh, you know, Iu last year lost 51 score games. We gotta win the close ones and, uh, but you know, every game, the margin fare is about that much and we're all as coaches fighting for the edge everywhere. We're gonna be an exciting team to watch but nothing gets people excited like winning, you string together wins. That gets them excited. I took a job, my second job, Elon there about eight and 45. We went in there. All right. Uh, we went eight in a row games two through nine. I mean, that you couldn't get in the stadium. It was like a different place, play for the conference championship. That was one of the two times I've been picked next to last, uh, we play for the conference championship and then our first year Young Sun Belt were picked next to last one of the championship. So I think that's what we picked this year too. That's not a prediction. Just a historical fact. I got you. I got you. All right. So part of what leads to winning, most important position arguably in sports quarterback. Tell me about your quarterback. There's a lot of people who are excited about this guy, the guy who had a lot of success in the Mac, what have you seen from him? I've been impressed, uh, you know, he learned the system, he's been exposed to most of the concepts. It was language more than anything. And, uh, he had a good spring, he's had a great summer and, uh, he knows how to play quarterback and he's a smart guy and he can make all the throws and, uh, you know, I'll sleep better at night. You're entering the big 10 in a very new chapter in this conference's history. Four new teams coming over from the west Coast, expanded to 18 teams. What have you made of this transition? Does it affect you at all? Is it just kind of more of an opportunity, an added challenge or what's kind of your take on the new guy on the block. It's, it's hard for me to kinda have an appreciation for what's gonna be different. And, uh I think there are four great programs to create a great league and now we're, we're not playing in divisions anymore. And, uh, you know, the big 10 has been full speed ahead and, uh, you know, 45% of the country is locked in on the big 10, uh, from a viewership standpoint and, uh, it's premier league. Anything else you want people to know about the 2024 Indiana Hoosiers? I know a lot of people are excited. You're here. I know we certainly are. Anything you would want people to know about this version of this team, come see us. We'll keep you in the stadium. All right. And Google him. That's Curt Cignetti. He's the head coach for IU football. Appreciate your time for joining us, coach. Certainly excited to see him this upcoming season.