‘Time to put it together’: The early foundation has been set for Indiana football. Now it’s time to sustain and build off of it in critical summer months

Curt Cignetti and his Indiana football staff have set a high bar for the program following a strong winter and spring. In the first six months on the job, there has been a culture shift inside the facilities and outside as the national perspective of Indiana has picked up. That was step number one. Now, it’s onto a critical step number two which will take place over the next two months that will continue the momentum for Cignetti into his debut season in Bloomington.

The tone was set early in the winter when Cignetti ‘flipped the roster’ with a combination of incoming transfers from ‘winning’ cultures, to productive players all over the country. He credits that to being the catalyst to the offseason momentum he gained early in his tenure.

“I think the biggest thing was we flipped the roster right off the bat,” Cignetti said last month. “My first day on the job with 10 guys in the transfer portal, starters on offense and half of the defense. And we were able to keep about half the people we wanted to keep, but I knew I needed to bring a lot of good faces in. We were able to bring 22 transfers in, in December. All those guys are two-, three-year starters from winning programs and quite a few from JMU, which really wasn’t the plan when I took this job. It just happened.

“But you’re talking about a championship culture, or people think the way you want them to think and we kept the right guys in the program from last year’s team and got rid of some dead wood, some guys needed to and those guys assimilated quickly. And we’re not there yet, you know, but nobody in the country is there.”

Patience is also a key word for Indiana this offseason — albeit not something Cignetti is saying outwardly. But, with 31 incoming transfers — among the most at the FBS level — and a culture overhaul, success doesn’t come overnight.

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Cignetti and his staff have a very strong understanding of who they are and what they want to do. But, it was difficult to get a full grasp on the level of confidence they had coming out of the spring as multiple injuries made things difficult to fully measure. With the team at full strength, it’s ‘go time’.

“The offense was ahead of the defense in spring, only because we had four or five key defensive guys out guys be back with us in fall camp,” Cignetti said. “In the spring transfer portal we kind of took care of some defensive needs. Felt good about that, and so now it’s time to put it together.”

Summer months are critically important to set Indiana football up for success

The foundation has been set. The next few months are not about building that, it’s more about sustaining and compounding what has been cemented as the bones of this team and program.

Cignetti knows it and is adamant about the development that needs to happen this summer in order to come out ready to go come seasons start.

“We gotta have a great summer,” Cignetti said. “Guys have to commit, and we normally do a great job there with Derek Owings, our strength and conditioning coordinator. I know we’ll make great strides and progress, have a good fall camp, keep them all healthy, develop and come out ready to play.”

And with the amount of new faces on the roster, no position is fully set. Competition continues throughout the summer, and likely into the fall. Curt Cignetti likes it that way as competition will bread success and follow along with his manta of ‘stalking complacency’, something that comes with persistent teaching, training and messaging.