Indiana began its second season under Curt Cignetti with a 27–14 win over Old Dominion, but the coach’s postgame tone was more irritation than celebration. “Always good to get a win. Wins are hard to get. 1-0. But I guarantee you, everybody in this organization realizes we didn’t play as well as we wanted to. That’s just a flat out fact,” Cignetti said.
The Hoosiers allowed a long touchdown run on the game’s first snap, a sequence that left Cignetti shaking his head. “I think everybody was probably in shock on the first touchdown run,” he admitted. “I thought the kids didn’t panic and rebounded from that. We just have to execute a little better.”
1-0 this week, but never satisfied. pic.twitter.com/9RVJRDslRE
— Indiana Football (@IndianaFootball) August 30, 2025
Even as Indiana controlled most of the day, Cignetti cut through the numbers with blunt honesty. “I thought we had them in position near the end of the second quarter where we could have stuck a fork in them and really jumped on them, and we couldn’t capitalize offensively,” he said. “We intercepted a pass and get a penalty. There was just a lot of things like that that the teams my teams in the past haven’t done.”
Inside the red zone, Cignetti was even harsher. “I would start with the plan. Maybe it wasn’t a very good plan,” he admitted. “We do it on Thursdays and it was the low red and goal line. And I was really concerned about it leading up to the kickoff. And I’m sure I’ll put the tape on, the execution isn’t very good. I hear comments on the headset about this guy was supposed to do this and that guy was supposed to do that.”
Asked if the mistakes were simply early-season issues, Cignetti bristled. “I’m not pleased with the way we played. So I can’t be any more clear than that.”
The coach summed up the game as “a great learning tool,” but his message was clear: the Hoosiers won, yet in his eyes they missed a chance to truly deliver.
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