Indiana's Curt Cignetti boldly states that 4-loss college football program is 'undefeated'

While Curt Cignetti has plenty of unconventional notions that he has used to revamp Indiana football, he showed one ancient coaching trend off in his Monday press conference-- poor mouthing. Preparing to face a 3-4 UCLA team, Cignetti characterized the Bruins as 'undefeated.' He did explain what he meant, but often after engaging in fine work in the historic Lou Holtz tradition of playing down one's own team and building up a rival to the point of incredulity.

No. 2 Indiana is currently a 24.5 point home favorite against 3-4 UCLA. But Cignetti certainly seemed to bypass that narrative in his press conference comments on the Hoosiers.

Cignetti's comments

We're playing a 3-0 football team that's undefeated, that's 3-0 in the conference-- since they have retooled their staff and have their new defensive coordinator and offensive staff in place. A very impressive football team.
Curt Cignetti

UCLA's season

Of course, Cignetti's later context makes his prior statements technically correct. But of course, that's a very partial version of the full situation. UCLA opened the season with a 43-10 beatdown at the hands of Utah, then fell to UNLV 30-23 and New Mexico 35-10. UCLA then fired coach DeShaun Foster, with coordinator Ikaika Malloe going then and offensive coordinator Tino Sunseri staying on through the next game, a 17-14 loss to Northwestern.

Since then, Jerry Neuheisel has coordinated the offense while Kevin Coyle is the defensive playcaller on a staff with shared assignments. But something clicks for the Bruins against Penn State. Despite opening as a 25.5 point underdog, UCLA pulled a shocking 42-37 upset (which began James Franklin's path away from Penn State).

Since then, UCLA has rocked Michigan State on the road 38-13 and outlasted Maryland 20-17 to claim a third consecutive win. UCLA's remaining schedule is daunting, with the trip to Indiana being later followed by trips to Ohio State and USC and home games with Nebraska and Washington.

Cignetti and the role of coachspeak

But Curt Cignetti's comments fill the usual paranoid coaching role of making clear that even a supposedly outmatched opponent is formidable and dangerous. It wasn't that long ago that Indiana was expected to be on the losing end of games against highly-regarded Big Ten foes and Cignetti's Hoosiers doubtlessly got the message that this is not the time to let up.