What Curt Cignetti Said After Indiana's Spring Football Game

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - Spring practices for Indiana concluded with the Spring Game on Thursday night at Memorial Stadium.

In the modified scoring system used, the Offense won 31-23 over the Defense. Indiana coach Curt Cignetti spoke less about the Spring Game specifically and more about the spring practices generally in his postgame press conference with the media.

Here's what Cignetti had to say ...

Opening statement ...

Curt Cignetti: So spring is in the books. Good night. Nobody got hurt. Some good, some bad, some ugly. I thought the players competed well. Sarratt and Fisher dinged up their knees last practice, but nothing that will -- it's not a long-term thing.

Like I told the players, when we come back in the fall, it's on, it's real, and we need our good players to play good every single day, every single rep, every single drill. Spring ball is over. We'll get out what we put in. We've got a chance to be as good as we want to be, and we've just got to keep improving. We've got to have a great summer, great fall camp, et cetera.

We've got a long way to go. We're not there yet. But you can see who -- we've got six or seven guys that have the potential to be good team leaders, got good players out there. We need depth in some areas. You'll probably ask me which ones. I'm not going to necessarily point those out. I'll let you figure it out on your own.

But it was good competition. Good spring.

On running back Kaelon Black and his spring ...

Cignetti: Yeah, high-energy guy. He's always started camp real well early in the year. Just staying healthy has kind of been his deal. He's got good speed. He's got a lot of juice. He's been with us a long time. He was a Virginia Tech commit out of high school and hurt an ankle, and I don't know what happened, but he ended up with us at JMU.

The end of spring in 2025 versus the end of spring in 2024 ...

Cignetti: That's a hard question. What I'll say about this team is we have a lot of the pieces that we need. If those pieces play to their full potential, consistently, day in, day out, play in, day out. Spring sometimes you don't tackle until this day here, and you're managing guys, sort of making sure the key ones don't get dinged up or injured in spring ball. But in the fall you've got to cut them loose. There's some progressions probably where we might look a little stronger right now, but I don't think there's a particular area we're extremely deficient.

On quarterback Fernando Mendoza and his spring progression ...

Cignetti: Yeah, I thought he had a really good last week. Now, I'm not -- I haven't watched tonight's film, okay, so I'm going to take tonight out of the mix. But I thought his last three practices, one of which was a scrimmage, he made major strides. It really started to click. I felt really good before the scrimmage where we were there with him.

I think Alberto had a good spring, too.

On Rolijah Hardy's spring and his progression ...

Cignetti: Well, about halfway through the season he was the starter in our trio package, which is three-linebacker defense to 12 personnel, two-tight-end sets. Really he was a starter the last half of the season. He's been a starter all spring. Just like Fernando, his last week of spring was really, really good, and that's how we need him to play when he comes back in the fall. He's got a lot of talent.

Cignetti: Well, right now, we have three veteran receivers that have done it on Saturday at the P4 level: Surratt, Cooper and EJ. They all took turns playing in the slot when Makai Jackson tweaked his hamstring before practice 4 and never returned, and then when we lost our Michigan guy to the non-contact knee, Tyler Morris, and Becker made progress.

I also thought that the freshman, Bond, made progress, and we've got Chandler coming in. So I'm counting on Jackson coming back, which will help our depth, and EJ made plays all spring long, and with EJ, it's not having the mental lapse here and there, missed assignment here and there, that kind of thing.

But I'm counting on him having a huge year for us. He's a big target with great body control, excellent ball skills. He's a threat.

On young guys who stood out ...

Cignetti: Well, I think all the freshmen have a long way to go. We have a lot of them, and when you compare the freshmen -- when you've been used to like the COVID extra year guys, for instance, and you're in the portal and you're coaching 25-, 24-, 23-year-old kids, you forget what coaching 17-, 18-year-old kids is like, especially ones that come in and enroll in school in January in the NIL era.

We've got some talented guys that will be good players at this level, but we've got a lot of them that got to grow up. But I thought Bond gave us a really good effort, practice in, practice out, and certainly Byron Baldwin, he flies around, got a lot of talent, likes contact, good ball skills. There was others, too.

But freshmen generally speaking when they come in and go through spring ball, it's very developmental for them, and they're a lot better when they come back in August.

On the linebackers ...

Cignetti: Well, we all know what Fish is and Hardy and Isaiah Jones is a veteran and a savvy guy, can play two positions, and after that we've got to develop some more depth.

On the slot receiver spot and the challenges of it ...

Cignetti: Just learning their assignment, splits, little things like that. But really most guys should be able to play on the left side, right side and in the slot. Even the guys that have never lined up at what we call H in the slot have played in the slot because in season we'll move guys around. Who do we think runs this route the best or can get open deep on this route the best. It's not that complicated that they can't learn -- the only one that didn't work in the slot was Charlie Becker.

Does he believe there are more playmakers on this team ...

Cignetti: Well, either we've got more playmakers on offense or we don't have very good tacklers on defense. It's one or the other.

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