Curt Cignetti addressed the media following IU football’s 20-17 win against Nebraska on Saturday afternoon at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln.
Watch Cignetti’s postgame comments below:
A full transcript of Cignetti’s comments is available below:
Opening statement:
“I’m not sure it’s completely sunk in, well it’s starting to, that we won cuz it took everything the players and coaches had in that one to find a way to overcome. Give Nebraska a lot of credit. really good football team. I thought we did a nice job of regrouping at halftime. And defense gave up three points in the second half and the offense made just enough plays. It’s a great win on the road, it was hard-fought. A win like that has a lot of value.”
On the adjustment process defensively throughout the game:
“Well, we had early in the game, first drive, first couple plays, next drive, first couple plays, we had some missed assignments at one position, where the ball was spitting out back to the field, whether it started out to the field or from the bench to the field. We got some of that cleaned up. We had problems with the quarterback, he’s a good player, very explosive. You saw today. But I think the biggest thing is we just settled down. We got them settled down at halftime and took a deep breath, forgot the first half, except for the corrections and adjustments and committed to one play at a time. And I told them, I said good teams find a way to win a game like this at the end. That’s what I told them at halftime and that’s what we did.”
On who he saw step up when they were down in fourth quarter:
“I saw the team step up. Defense gave up a score on a quarterback run and they kicked the ball out of the end zone and first play on offense we hit Nick Marsh on an RPO and took it to the house about 75 yards. And then made a big… we missed some opportunities in the second half, you saw them, and then the fourth and one play, we’re trying to… that one there, Kansas made that one famous with that guy starting a quarterback for Tampa and that guy’s a good coach and we stole that one about five six years ago. Hit Northwestern on it on a fourth one on the one, but actually called the protection backwards. They covered the guy we thought would get the ball and Nick flashed open and Josh found him and Nick made some big plays for us there in the second half.”
On the reason that a team finds a way to win:
“You gotta have an indomitable will, man. A will that cannot be defeated or subdued and you got to be resilient. Do you have the ability to overcome the unexpected? And that no matter how bad it gets, that you never let anxiety frustration enter your mindse. That you’re gonna find a way, it’s just a matter of time.”
On if he knew this team had that in them:
“Well, I mean when we left the locker room at halftime, I wanted to see look them all in the eye. Had them all kneel real quick so I could see them. But you don’t know. We didn’t play very well in first half. Nebraska played great and we they dominated us. And then you could see it start to turn and we’ve won just over the years so many games like at the end.”
On the timeouts they had to take in the first half:
“I’d have to go back and see them all again and review them. But you’re absolutely correct and a lot of them were maybe ‘God, I just wanted to go for it.’ But my common sense, you know, we weren’t getting anything done and the clock’s running down and let’s just survive it, let’s stop the bleeding, punt the ball. You know even like in the second half… and those were all on me. And at the end of the day I decided go conservative in the first half. There was too much time left in the game. We weren’t playing well, they were playing well.”
“The two-point play, we showed our formation. I didn’t feel like we had a great second option after the timeout. We kicked the ball because still, when you’re down what, four? You can do that math, right? So it worked out.”
On the response after Nebraska went up 17-6:
“Yeah, it was really loud we had to go silent. But we responded with the immediate touchdown and then had some big stops on defense and finally broke through on offense.
“So it’s a great team win. I mean, we’ve had to go down to the end and found a way.”
On what the big plays Josh Hoover made says about his leadership:
“Well, I mean Josh has played a lot of football. He made some throws today. He missed a couple throws. He took one that he didn’t have the option to take. But at the end of the day that was a huge play, fourth and one. And when number one option wasn’t open, he had great poise, presence. He was calm and delivered a strike. What’d he have two touchdown passes today? 17 touchdown passes, no interceptions. It’s not bad.”
On the growth of Nick Marsh in recent weeks:
“I mean he’s been trending that way for about the last three or four weeks. We put a package in where we could utilize his skills a little bit more and I’ve seen the improvement about the last four weeks. And he made some big plays today and I’m happy for him and I’m happy for us. The kids really like him and they looked at him as a guy as a playmaker.”
On Nebraska’s front seven and the difficulties with the running game:
“Early on it was obvious they were committed to stopping the run and a certain RPO. And we really never quite got the run game going. I thought we’d run the ball better than we did but we’ll deal with that tomorrow in our evaluation of why. Probably they decided that they had to stop the run, number one, and do the best they could verses the pass. So at the end of the day, we won the one-on-one matchups in the pass game and made one more play than they did.”
On what he learned about the defense when they had to play as much as they did and still made the plays that counted at the end:
“Well, I mean, you know we rotate guys up front, so the two linebackers don’t get to rotate as much, but it’s the whole defense, not just six guys. And there’s gonna be a lot of things we don’t like on tape, I’ll tell you that right now. But we did just enough.”
