Video, Quotes: Curt Cignetti previews Saturday’s matchup at Oregon

Indiana coach Curt Cignetti addressed the media at his weekly press conference Monday afternoon in Bloomington.

Cignetti previewed Saturday’s matchup against No. 3 Oregon at Autzen Stadium.

Watch the full press conference below:

A full transcript is available below, via ASAP Sports:

CURT CIGNETTI: Good bye week. Got rested up. Got practice in. Kept the fundamentals and timing sharp. Now it’s 100 percent focus on Oregon. Great opponent, great team, a lot of great players. Extremely well-coached.

Big, fast, athletic, physical, depth. Coach Lanning has done a tremendous job recruiting, development, attention. Probably one of the most impressive young coaching phenoms to come around in a while I would say, having been in this game for a little bit. They’re a great football team.

Looking forward to the challenge. Confidence in our team.

Q. When you mentioned their depth, is it a step above — you’ve talked about Oregon being one of the teams with unlimited resources back in April. Is that a direct result of that, where you see their depth is a step above maybe the rest of the Big Ten?

CURT CIGNETTI: Well, I don’t know what their resources are. All I know is they’ve got a lot of good players.

Q. I imagine your roster and the way you preach is to approach every game the same way, but you guys have now played in a lot of these really sort of high-profile match-ups in a short space of time. Do you see your players more comfortable, that none of this seems new or sort of over-awing to them, maybe the way it might have a year ago?

CURT CIGNETTI: Well, I have not seen our players in a couple days, and we have a veteran team. So they’ve been around the block. Most of them have been in games like this before.

Q. What makes Dante Moore so effective, and is this the deepest group of receivers you guys have faced this year?

CURT CIGNETTI: Well, he’s playing really well. He’s another guy, got big-time arm talent, quick release, accurate. He’s very athletic, very fluid, can run, extend plays, change of direction. He’s getting the ball out on time, rhythm. He snaps it off really quick.

He’s really impressive on tape. The wide receivers are equally as impressive. Tight end, good depth there; good depth at running back. They spread the ball around. They use the field, and they run the ball well.

As he’s played more, you can see he’s building on his success, confidence, belief, and he’s one of the great quarterbacks in the country. There’s no doubt about it.

Q. You’ve dealt with the travel to the West Coast before with UCLA. Obviously this is a much better team in Oregon. Does it matter if the game is earlier in the day, later in the day, in how you mitigate that travel?

CURT CIGNETTI: More no than yes, but a little bit. We’re going to get out there slightly earlier than we did UCLA, but it won’t be by much.

Q. You had mentioned after the playoff loss last year that what separated y’all from those elite teams on the road was they’re just a little bit stronger, had a little bit more size. Do you feel like y’all have trimmed that margin at all roster-wise?

CURT CIGNETTI: Well, we’re not as big as Oregon. They can roll four inside guys at D-tackle that are 330 plus. They’ve got big people in there.

I guess we’re going to find out this week, but what I would say about Ohio State and Notre Dame, you can dwell on the line of scrimmage, but I don’t think we won the battle at any position in those games.

Q. You mentioned after the Iowa game, you guys didn’t really check out of things or let Fernando audible out of things because of the road environment and the crowd noise. Do you anticipate sort of the same line of thinking going into the Oregon game?

CURT CIGNETTI: We’ve never been a check audible team, really, to be honest with you. Early on at JMU maybe we’d send a play in, and he had to have a certain look, and he’d look to the sideline, but we quit doing that after year two.

We don’t do a lot of it. We talk about doing it at times. We’ll see what this week brings.

Q. You talked about after Iowa that Fernando passed that test in Iowa City. What will he need to show you this week to pass the test against Oregon?

CURT CIGNETTI: He made some outstanding throws against Iowa. I don’t recall that exact comment. Left some plays out there, too, but he was under pressure quite a bit, as well.

I just want Fernando, like the rest of the guys on the team, to relax and play their game. We’re just going to go out there and play our game and play it well.

Q. Dan Lanning has one home loss to his name, and Autzen is an incredibly tough atmosphere. How much did that Iowa game atmosphere-wise help in preparation to going out to Eugene?

CURT CIGNETTI: Well, I think anytime you do something the second time, it helps that you’ve been through it one time before. Iowa was a sellout. It was loud. To have that kind of preparation going into this game will help.

Q. Do you think that travel from last year to UCLA, you said you’re keeping it mostly the same, do you think that helps the guys who are returning and some of the guys who came in, that they can combine together to figure it out?

CURT CIGNETTI: There’s not much to figure out. That’s what we do every game. We get in about the same time in the evening and we’ve got our routine. It’s just the way I like to do it.

Q. What’s your mindset like going into a big game like this on the road?

CURT CIGNETTI: I mean, I’m trying to get as much done today as possible and find the edge, like every game.

I say it all the time; you prepare for them all the same. Otherwise you’d be doing a disservice to your team if you’re all in one game and not all in on another. From that standpoint, it’s pretty much the same.

Q. When you mentioned maybe not being quite as big up front as Oregon is, how do you combat that going into the game on Saturday?

CURT CIGNETTI: Well, you put together the best plan for your team that you think gives you the best chance to be successful. But I have confidence in our team, right. They are big. They are athletic. They are a very good football team. We’re a good football team.

Q. Do you have any update on the status of D’Angelo Ponds, and when you watch the film, how do you think the secondary held up without him against Iowa?

CURT CIGNETTI: I expect Ponds to be fine and play. We found out late in the week he wouldn’t be available for the Iowa game, so Coach Haines took out the eraser and ink pen and game plan changed a little bit, played a little bit more zone than he was planning on playing going into the game, and I thought we did well.

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