Amare Ferrell, Jailin Walker Represent How Indiana Football Has Come Together Under Curt Cignetti

Ferrell is an Indiana player that Curt Cignetti decided to keep. Jailin Walker came with Cignetti from James Madison. They have rapidly learned how to pull in the same direction.

UCLA Bruins quarterback Ethan Garbers (4) is tackled by Indiana Hoosiers linebacker Aiden Fisher (4) and defensive back Amare Ferrell (25) in the first half at Rose Bowl. / Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

PASADENA, Calif. – Indiana’s football team has made such a seamless transition to the ways of first-year football coach Curt Cignetti that you forget that it typically doesn’t work that way.

Rosters that have the flux Indiana had between the 2023 and 2024 seasons don’t often come together in a flash. Even with a long offseason, spring ball and fall camp, you never really know what the chemistry is until the games begin for real.

Plenty of teams have trouble integrating transfers with players already on the roster. Some teams have trouble getting all of the players on the same page as fast as they need to with a new system.

On both sides of the ball for Indiana, these problems could have come up. There are 13 James Madison transfers who had prominent roles, mixed in with holdover Hoosiers and transfers from elsewhere. Indiana had the third-fewest amount of scholarship players returning from 2023. It all could have gone sideways, especially if resentment had set in.

It hasn’t – as Indiana’s 3-0 start and dominant 42-13 victory over UCLA on Saturday in the Rose Bowl demonstrated.

Two defensive players spoke to the media after the emphatic win, and they represent two sides of the roster mix the Hoosiers have in 2024.

Safety Amare Ferrell is a sophomore who played 12 games as a freshman for the Hoosiers in 2023. He has ascended to a starting role in 2024 and has two interceptions in three games.

Linebacker Jailin Walker came with Cignetti from James Madison. A self-admitted “captain” of the defense along with fellow former JMU linebacker Aiden Fisher, Walker has the know-how in Cignetti’s system to make it work and tell teammates how to be effective within defensive coordinator Bryant Haines’ schemes.

Along with nine other defenders on the field with them, they’ve combined to make Indiana’s defense nasty. The Hoosiers have only given up an average of 7.6 points in three games.

“That’s the standard is playing nasty, playing physical and make plays. Every game, you have to bring that nastiness, do your job, and the story continues,” Walker said, brushing off some of the penalties that came from the style Indiana played.

For Ferrell, he feels a definite difference from his freshman year to his current one.

“You can just tell things are just way different on both sides of the ball and special teams. Coaches demand perfection every single play and that leads to Saturday,” Ferrell said.

Ferrell has been a big reason Indiana has been able to win the turnover battle in all three of its games so far. However, a turnover he wasn’t part of – Mikail Kamara’s recovery of UCLA quarterback Ethan Garbers’ fumbled snap on the first UCLA play from scrimmage – went a long way towards making everything smooth for Indiana’s defense against the Bruins.

“It’s a good feeling when you get a turnover on the first play of the game and you know your offense is going to score on the turnover. It definitely calmed us down,” Ferrell said.

It helps that the defense has maximum faith in the offense. And why not? All six of Indiana’s scoring series resulted in touchdowns against UCLA.

“Every time we get it, we expect them to go score. We have that faith in them. We’ve got a lot of guys on that offense and we trust them a lot,” Ferrell said.

For Walker, this was the first chance for him and his fellow JMU transfers to show what talent they possess and to test it against a Big Ten opponent.

They collectively passed the test. Fisher had 9 tackles, Walker had 7 tackles, including one for a loss. Cornerback D’Angelo Ponds had a pass breakup before he was ejected for targeting. Defensive tackle James Carpenter forced Garbers out of bounds for a sack.

Walker downplayed producing against a higher caliber of competition – while also acknowledging that it was important to show what they could do.

“It’s really big for us, for the team and for IU,” said Walker on performing well in a Big Ten game. “The guys? Our mentality is football is football. So 11 guys are gonna be on the field and we’re going to bring our 11 and we’re going to play our best ball and give our best to IU.”

This disparate group of players have become cohesive in a hurry. They’ve also come to appreciate the growing fan support they’re getting. Of the crowd of 47,811 at the Rose Bowl, many were decked out in cream and crimson. Several of them gathered above the Indiana tunnel to show their support for the team after the victory.

“I mean that’s awesome. Coming all the way from Bloomington to California, it’s awesome we had the fans out here,” Ferrell said.

Walker is learning how vocal the support can be for Indiana football when wins begin to pile up.

“That feels good having the fans here. Shoutout to the fans for coming down here out to the west,” Walker said.

“They give us energy, they excite us and when we make a play, we can hear them. When everybody plays with energy that makes us bounce around and fly around to make big plays,” Walker added.

Big plays from a defense that has come together in quick fashion.

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