Curt Cignetti spoke to the media following IU football’s 23-16 overtime win against Minnesota on Saturday at Memorial Stadium.
Watch Cignetti’s postgame comments below:
A full transcript of Cignetti’s postgame comments is available below, via ASAP Sports:
CURT CIGNETTI: It’s the entertainment business, so we thought we’d ramp it up with Game Day here and I could entertain for everybody (smiling).
I’m glad we decided to (indiscernible) to the plan, two-thirds of our teams in the final 19 seconds of regulation.
Defense was pretty good throughout. Can’t say enough about this team finding a way to overcome this challenge when it looked really dire.
Made a play on the sideline with Charlie Becker. Made that 60-yard field goal with Paddy. First play in overtime the defense stopped them on fourth down.
Tremendous win.
Again, I thought the defense was really good throughout. The offense was not so good and sort of frazzled. Better in the second half. Then just some huge special teams gaffs throughout the entire game, which is so uncharacteristic of us.
But it’s nice to be open this week. I think playing nine straight… That’s what we did, we played nine straight. It will be great to have an open week, get everybody refreshed and sort of revitalized.
So great win. Questions.
Q. How quickly at halftime did you decide to go to Grant? I know Grant is a veteran, but he showed the poise…
CURT CIGNETTI: Grant has some real qualities. Total confidence in him. Started at ODU. I saw him up close and personal my last year at JMU. Great team guy. Kids on the team love him. Big, tall, strong guy. Strong arm. Can get the ball down the field. He can run.
I have a lot of confidence in him.
Josh obviously took that hit, so I can’t remember the exact moment I made my mind up. Grant did a nice job.
Q. Walk us through I guess that sequence at the end, sort of not calling timeout to preserve some time before Minnesota’s kick.
CURT CIGNETTI: Right. Okay, so I have my hand in a little bit of everything. I know what was going on. I knew they had a great kicker. Felt like they were going to try to run it down and end it on his kick.
He was 13 of 13 along the 51. But 51-yarder, probably had 10 to spare. I knew he could make that kick. In fact, I was considering if they only gained like seven yards and the clock was moving, and it was only going to be like a 58-yarder, calling a timeout so we’d have some time left at the end.
It became a 60- or 62-yarder from the right hash. That’s a hard hash. Okay, there’s a chance he could miss this, but he didn’t.
First play coming out, we just kind of like took a shot there. I said to Mike, Look, let’s go three by one open, four verts, throw the ball to Charlie.
Greg can make that throw. Has a strong arm. Anticipated some kind of roll coverage, outside pocket throw. We made the play. We thought the ball was out of bounds. It wasn’t. Thankfully Marsh’s play on the other side, same play, left two seconds on the clock. We all thought the ball was out of bounds. All of a sudden the clock is running.
Regardless, my man Paddy drills that field goal right down the middle. He’s made those in practice. All I said to him was, Swing nice and easy, not an inch to the right, not an inch to the left. Sometimes kickers want to overhit those things. He’s got plenty of leg for that. As soon as he hit it, knew it was good.
Then we made the play in overtime, the sluggo. One-play touchdown, kind of like Michigan. Defense held them. It’s a great win. Very improbable comeback.
Q. I know Hardy wasn’t able to play. What is his status?
CURT CIGNETTI: That was like a shock. Something popped in his back in pregame. They tried to take care of him, but didn’t work. That was like a 20-minute-before-kickoff adjustment we had to make.
Q. With the fourth and one when you went to tie it at 13, what was the thought process there?
CURT CIGNETTI: That was some back and forth. Then I overrode everybody to kick it, because that’s the play. The play right there is kick the field goal. We’ve outgained them. We’re at home. Let’s get it tied up. I know we’ve had some field goal problems, and that was the concern of some people. That guy’s made a lot of field goals for us.
Glad we did it because even if we make that fourth and one, we got to get the ball in the end zone still. We haven’t proven we can do that yet. We have the turnover from the defense early in the game and hit the RPO for a touchdown. We were down there how many times and didn’t score a touchdown?
So we had to get it to a tie.
Q. When you get that 60-yarder from Paddy there, after the issues you’ve had, the blocks, all the special teams issues, miraculous? How do you describe that?
CURT CIGNETTI: I’ve seen him do it. We practice a lot of times. I had confidence he could get it done.
Q. This defense kept you in the ball seemingly the entire time.
CURT CIGNETTI: Our defense? One-third of our team (winking).
Q. How do you describe its ability to maintain its will?
CURT CIGNETTI: We have good players over there, we really do. Our front’s really good. That’s where it starts. You think back, back in the day, all the great Super Bowl teams were great up front on defense. We’re really good up front on defense. Coach Haines does a good job. Out backers are good, our DBs. They’re definitely the strength of the team. There’s no doubt about that. I can’t say enough great things about them.
They hit us on a trick play. As soon as it started out, I knew it was coming. They made a nice throw on it, touchdown.
Q. You mentioned all the mistakes, the penalties, turnovers, special teams. What did you see from a composure standpoint from your team?
CURT CIGNETTI: We just sort of withstood it. I think defense was pretty solid throughout. Offense kind of frazzled a little bit at times. Couldn’t get lined up right. Special teams obviously.
I mean, we have a good punter. A rough day. We have a good field goal kicker. Had a rough day. One of the snaps, maybe two of the snaps. We hung in there and other guys made plays and we overcame it.
