Since last Saturday’s win over Florida International, Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti has repeated “build,” “learn,” and be or get “better” numerous times in his two press conferences. Team leaders redshirt senior quarterback Kurtis Rourke and junior linebacker Aiden Fisher echoed the same words post-game.
On Friday, the Hoosiers will host a Western Illinois team that hasn’t won a football game in 1,040 days — since Oct. 30, 2021. Indiana has this mindset that consists of winning and getting better with every rep and opportunity. That’s it. The praises are kept to a minimum but given when due.
“We did tackle well, we swarmed and had multiple hats,” Cignetti said Monday. “We didn't tackle in fall camp and only once in the spring. There you go. So a lot to build on.”
The Indiana defense stifled FIU. They allowed 182 yards, sacked the Panthers four times, tackled for a loss eight more times and caused an interception in the fourth quarter that squandered any hope on the opposing sideline.
The lone touchdown scored by FIU came on its last drive in the second half. A 12-play drive for 75 yards was topped off by a 7-yard touchdown reception by Rocky Beers that left 48 seconds on the clock. Cignetti and Fisher both said that their defense isn’t supposed to look like it did on that drive.
“I mean first game, you gotta assess those things,” Fisher said. “But coming out in the second half, being able to shut them out, I think we played solid. Just a lot of things to grow off of and learn from.”
The big men in the trenches for Indiana were given deserved praise after Saturday from both the team and national media. The team awarded Carter Smith as the offensive player of the week. He also earned an 89.2 pass-blocking grade while teammate Bray Lynch scored 87.8 from Pro Football Focus (PFF). The grades earned them the No. 1 and No. 7 spots amongst Power 4 linemen for Week 1. The Hoosiers were the only team in Power 4 with multiple linemen in the top 10 as well.
The offensive line led the way for Indiana to run for 234 yards on 40 carries, averaging out to 5.9 yards a carry. The most rushing yards for the Hoosiers in a game since Nov. 19, 2022, vs Michigan State. Three touchdowns for the Hoosiers came from the ground game. Ty Son Lawton found paydirt twice and a 51-yard touchdown run by Elijah Green.
Indiana will try to build off of the win on Friday while Western Illinois and new head coach Joe Davis try to rebound from a 54-15 loss at Northern Illinois University.
WIU was down 6-3 after the first quarter, until NIU scored 41 unanswered points in the next two quarters. Western did have a 55-yard passing touchdown called back on their second drive. The mistake caused the team to “never generate that consistent momentum again,” Davis said.
Over half the Leatherback's roster consists of transfers — after a winless season Davis wanted to rebuild most of his roster. Unlike Cignetti, Davis only brought one player with him from his former school, Eastern Illinois.
Davis and his coaching staff say they’re watching a mix of JMU film (Cignetti’s former team) and the IU-FIU game. They said they notice a lot of “carryover” in the schematics from Cignetti and his staff.
After an abysmal performance where Western didn’t score a touchdown, they’re a squad also looking to build off last week.
The Hoosiers are 17-1 all-time against FCS teams and are on a 14-game winning streak against them. This revamped Hoosiers squad can do some serious damage to the Leathernecks.
Kickoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. EST at Memorial Stadium in Bloomington on Friday. You can catch the game on BTN with the pregame starting at 6:30 p.m.
