It was a special Saturday night for Indiana football team head coach Curt Cignetti as his daughter got engaged, but it was extra sweet as his group beat the Michigan Wolverines, 20-15. After the historic win for the Indiana football team, Cignetti would drop some gospel about what it takes to be a team that wins titles.
There is no doubt that the trend for Cignetti in talking about his team's performance was that it could have been better, but they came out on top over the Wolverines. He would say what separates a great team from a good one is that they find different ways to be the victors, even if it isn't the most attractive performance.
“Championship teams find a way to win football games,” Cignetti said. “Do you get style points? This is probably the first one we haven't. But it's a pretty good win.”
“Here's how I'm going to honestly answer that question: I'm glad we won. I don't like the way we played,” Cignetti continued.
Indiana football's Curt Cignetti speaks on their “resiliency”
With the Indiana football team being a top ten ranked team, they have some high expectations to perform on an elite level every game. However, it tells more about the character of the Hoosiers in showing off their resiliency as they were in sync offensively early, but not so much more towards the end.
“It tells you a lot about the resiliency of this team, its competitive character,” Cignetti said. “At the end of the day, they all count as one. Whether it’s 72-6 or 3-2, they all count as one. And you know what? We’re going to take the win over Michigan.”
Indiana football's Curt Cignetti wants more out of his team
Cignetti was hired by the Indiana football team as he's in his first season, already achieving some immense marks, like beating Michigan for only the second time since 1988 and giving the team 10 wins in a season. Still, even with all the accolades, he wasn't fully happy with how they played Saturday, according to The Herald-Times.
“I'm not happy with the way we played, particularly on offense in the second half,” Cignetti said. “We've got to take a good look at the film Monday and see what happens. I thought special teams overall was fairly solid. There were a couple kickoff returns that game out on their bench, but it looked like maybe we were getting grabbed on them. But I thought our defense did a number of good things, but they were on the field too long.”
“I think this team understands that no matter — we can find a way to get it done, but I think if you polled them, they would all prefer to execute at a much higher level and score more points,” Cignetti continued.
As for the Michigan Wolverines, who won the national championship last season, they are unranked and had to face a surging Hoosiers team.
“The story of the game is not scoring in the red zone. You can’t get down there and have it first-and-6, first-and-7 and not score,” Michigan football head coach Sherrone Moore said. “We weren’t getting any movement up front. They executed, and we didn’t.”
The Hoosiers look to go 11-0 as they face No. 2 Ohio State next Saturday.