Indiana football head coach Curt Cignetti spoke with the media on the Monday, as the Hoosiers began week three of fall camp.
Below is his full Q&A, as well as a partial transcript.
Cignetti: The scrimmage on Saturday, I liked the energy, the effort, the competition. Still a lot of things to clean up –– assignment wise, pre-snap penalties, turnovers, stuff like that. I thought (Kurtis) Rourke had a good day, he really has separated himself pretty significantly in that scrimmage. We’re still developing players, depth and scheme. It’s an important week.
On the quarterback position...
Cignetti: I think (Kurtis) Rourke stacks days. He had an off-day or two last week where maybe he wasn’t really good in seven-or-seven but came back and had a really good two-minute drill something like that, but for the most part he’s been playing good football. Now, always room for improvement for anyone on this football team, any coaching staff member, never satisfied. But (he’s) consistent, and knows how to play quarterback, a lot goes into that position, he’s an extension of a coach. And he’s got to make good decisions, choices and decisions that are going to lead to give you the best chance of success as a football team. Sometimes it might not be making the spectacular play, it might be getting you back to normal down-and-distance situation, but it also highly involves processing information, finding the open guy and getting them the ball. Nothing has really changed there in terms of how I feel coming out of spring. Tayven (Jackson) is capable of making the wild play, but there has to be more play-in, play-out consistency, eye discipline, focus, eyes downfield, making the right reads, securing the football, not turning the ball over, proper footwork and run game so we don’t have fumbles in the run game, things of that nature. And the two freshmen (Tyler Cherry and Alberto Mendoza) are getting better.
On what he saw from the defense in the first scrimmage...
Cignetti: We thudded the scrimmage. Any time you thud the scrimmage it’s really kind of hard to run the football because you can’t take into account broken tackles or perimeter tackles, but put good pressure on the quarterback, pretty solid for the most part against the run, have to contain the quarterback a little bit better when he’s in the pocket, particularly a guy that has some athleticism, we’ll have to improve on that. In the opener, FIU has a pretty crafty, athletic quarterback. Gave up a few explosives, a little bit like the offense, there was good, there was bad, there was ugly. But it’s significantly better than it was in the spring, which the goal coming into fall camp the second time through it, more consistency in performance, play in, play out, high level, we’re not there yet, and we still have things to install.
On the offensive line's progress...
Cignetti: Solid I’d say, still some technique, things to clean up, so we can protect the quarterback a little better. Our defense is a handful when it comes to protecting the passer because schematically (Bryant) Haines knows how to get to the quarterback. So he challenges those guys up front. Eye discipline and footwork.
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