Coach Q&A: Indiana football head coach Curt Cignetti speaks with the media Day 1 of Spring Practice

Indiana football head coach Curt Cignetti spoke with the media Thursday morning after the first day of spring practice.

The first year head coach spoke to the media about what the first day of practice was like, the wide receiver group, leadership, and much more.

Below is the full video Q&A plus transcript.

Opening Statement:
CC: You guys are going to want to know a lot, but it is just one practice with no pads. You play football with pads on, and I always call it pajamas when we go out [and practice] like this. Some people think it’s safer that we go out two days like this. It’s really not, but just tell me the rules and I will play by them.

I thought the flow was good today. Players tried to do the right thing. [We practiced for] About an hour and 55 minutes. There is not a whole lot to tell you other than we have practice again on Saturday morning and we will get 13 in this spring and 22 or 23 in fall camp. The most important thing is that we are ready to go when we run out of the tunnel for the opener.

We are trying to promote competition. I think the defense is going to be a little shorthanded throughout the spring because they are missing some key guys that have played really good football collegiately in the past and that we expect to help us. On offense, really the only significant guy out is [Nick] Kidwell at right guard. You are looking at [James] Carpenter, who is a really good player, [Lanell] Carr’s played football, [Venson] Sneed has been a top backup, Jalin Walker is an excellent linebacker. There may be another guy or two on defense [that I am missing], so they are a little thin over there, and with [Philip] Blidi leaving, which was unexpected, but he did what he did and that is all I am going to say about that, and we will keep it to our guys.

We will make progress this spring and push it forward and keep working every day to improve and improve the roster. We will see where we are at the end of spring in this wild world of college football. And we’ll see what the roster looks like in August. Have to be light on your feet around here, to be a Power 5 or any kind FBS or any kind of college football coach now a days, because it is crazy.

Alright, let’s go.

On managing the defensive load during spring ball…
CC: We have enough bodies to go three teams, which is the goal. You want to be able to work three teams when you start your 11-on-11 stuff. We are keeping the reps a little lower, racks of four, right now, early on, because football movements are just do different than anything the strength and conditioning staff can do with them. It’s a start-stop game, so you want to develop players and keep them healthy, so we kind of build the reps up as we go.

On quarterback structure and practice reps…
CC: Every year has been a little different, but there was a year at [James Madison] where we had three guys – my first year there – that we thought were fairly equal and we gave them all a day. The second year, we did the same thing. [Kurtis] Rourke went with the ones today, Tayven [Jackson] with the teams and [Tyler] Cherry with the threes.

On the depth in the wide receiver room…
CC: On paper, you are right. There is a lot of production, and we want to promote competition. Everything is earned, not give, and no one has a job. Some guys have a body of work, and I’m talking about all positions right now.

Everything is earned on the field. There is no entitlement, nor can there every be. That room has a lot of older guys that have made plays in game, and I am excited about their potential to help us win football games.

On the evolution of on-field leadership…
CC: I think we are still developing and learning about the guys. Like in flex today, at the end of flex we always have somebody talk, have a few guys out front, and Kaelon Black talked today, who was at JMU and was a running back, because he talked one time last year and had a lot of juice. We want that guy to kind of grab everyone’s attention.

I think we are learning. We have players from Indiana that we did not coach last year. There are transfers that we did not coach last year, and we have some guys from JMU that we did coach last year. So, I think that will evolve.

On how to measure success in the spring…
CC: Number one, we want to keep them all healthy. We don’t want to have any significant injuries, especially to guys we think can make major contributions to the football team.

Number two, we have to install our offense, defense and special teams schemes, and teach the way we practice. We have a certain way we practice, a certain way we play the game and things that we emphasis that we think are important in being successful. And practice should emulate the game a little bit.

I was fairly pleased with day one, the flow of day one. We want to develop players and find out who can do what. Then, come out of spring, it used to be recruiting and development, now it is recruiting, development and retention, se who is on the bus and who is off the bus and put the best roster together that we can for August.

On the setup of the spring schedule…
CC: This [spring practice schedule] was more about [scheduling]. I have always started the Thursday after spring break. We have always like to come off of spring break and stride the guys Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, let them get the stuff out of them so we don’t have soft tissue stuff on day one and two. Now, the way the school year fell and with some other activities going on on campus, it just worked out that way that we would only get 13 [practices] in. So, I can’t say that will be the case next year.

On what goes into the setup of practice…
CC: Organization and planning.

On evaluating and making decisions regarding position changes…
CC: You want to put your best team on the field, and you have strengths and weaknesses. If that guy can be a starter over here, I think we all do that as coaches. I have a history of [position changes]. We have had some offensive guys that weren’t first teamers go and play [defensive back] and a couple of them had pretty lengthy NFL careers. So, we are trying to put the best 11 on the field, but we don’t have to do that today.

You saw [Nic] Toomer out there today at strong safety, and he has played some corner, and that is just a situation where we have some corners and we wanted to take a look at him at strong safety.

On how practice one went…
CC: Day one it’s how you do things, and this was new for everybody today. It was new for me to go out on the field and practice. Like, how do I even get to the field from my office, and I figured that out and found the shortest way. Then, I go out there and the tight ends and receivers and running backs stuff is in the wrong spot, so that was new.

It was a good day, and Kaelon was sort of showing everybody else how we do it. Everybody is different and does it different. Not everybody’s going to get up in front and talk, because those are sort of like the guys that are going to end up being leaders.

SEE ALSO: National analyst thinks Curt Cignetti will have Indiana football ‘ahead of schedule’ in year one

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