FOOTBALL

Curt Cignetti is a man of routine and consistency — nothing changes with Saturday’s game vs UCLA. Will Indiana football respond?

Curt Cignetti has set Indiana football up for success thus far. Saturday is no different against UCLA. Will the team respond?

Published

4 days ago

September 14, 2024

Alec Lasley

Curt Cignetti has set Indiana football up for success thus far. Saturday is no different against UCLA. Will the team respond? (Mandatory Credit: Trevor Ruszkowski-Imagn Images)

Saturday night arrives for Indiana football with a lot of firsts. Its first Big Ten game of the Curt Cignetti era. Its first road game. The first time playing UCLA and the first time playing at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena since 1968. So, there was bound to be a significant amount of hoopla and storylines coming into IU’s week three matchup.

But all week it’s been the same messaging from head coach Curt Cignetti — it’s all business.

During his weekly radio show appearance on Thursday night, it was more of the same — with the quotes and analogies that Indiana fans have now become all too familiar with in the short nine months Cignetti has been in Bloomington.

“This isn’t like in third grade, fourth grade, and you go on a field trip and you come back show and tell. That ain’t what this is,” Cignetti said about IU’s west coast trip. “Yeah, we’re going to play a football game on a 100-yard field. It happens to be out in California. That’s the deal.”

Indiana enters Saturday’s matchup at 2-0 and UCLA will be IU’s first real test of the young season. Cignetti knows that.

“We’ve done a lot of good things in those two games, but we haven’t played a top-25 team, let’s face it,” said the IU head coach. “But I’ve seen progress and I’ve seen development.”

While UCLA isn’t that ranked opponent that Cignetti referenced, there will be a clear distinction between Indiana’s first two opponents and its opponent on Saturday.

The Bruins enter after just one game against Hawaii two weeks ago. But, it’s a program that has achieved a lot in the past three seasons — a clear distinction and difference when comparing the Bruins to Indiana football.

25 wins to nine. That’s the difference in UCLA and Indiana since 2021.

All of that can be thrown out, however. Now, it’s two new head coaches — a first-year head coach in DeShaun Foster at UCLA — and two entirely revamped rosters.

“Compare them to us, we’ve won nine total bowl games, but yet we’re favored,” Cignetti chuckled. “Figure that one out.

“I’m not like the media people where I critique and give this unit an A, this one a B-. We got what we got and we’re developing everybody to their fullest potential.”

All that Cignetti focuses on? Wins and losses. But more importantly not losing.

“I’m a head coach, first and foremost,” Cignetti said. “I love winning. I love winning. But I hate losing.”

So, when it comes to wins and losses, Cignetti is maintaining the exact same routine he has developed even back as an assistant, coaching in both the ACC and SEC. Nothing changes ahead of Saturday.

“Do everything Friday on your campus, that way the players don’t miss much class. You have your meetings there. You have your walkthrough there,” Cignetti said. “We did it that way at NC State, and we did it that way at Alabama, too. My routine has worked for me, so I’m not changing it.”

While this game may not make or break the season in all actuality — it’s clear what the outcome could do.

A win won’t silence the doubters about the schedule. A win won’t silence the doubters who are hesitant to think that this Indiana football team is different than the past three years.

But, Curt Cignetti knows that this team and now his program, is different

“Here’s what I’ll say about our football team,” Cignetti said. “I feel like we made tremendous progress in our culture from the day I got hired until our first game. The proof had to be in the pudding and the only way to measure that is on the field performance.”

“We have confidence right now. I don’t think we have a false confidence. We aren’t cocky.”