Curt Cignetti Explains Indiana Football Travel Schedule To UCLA

Indiana plays UCLA at the Rose Bowl Stadium on Saturday, the football team's first game against one of the four teams that left the Pac-12 to join the Big Ten for the 2024 season. Coach Curt Cignetti detailed his approach to cross-country travel on Thursday night.

Indiana coach Curt Cignetti looks up at the scoreboard after defeating Florida International at Memorial Stadium. / Rich Janzaruk/Herald-Times / USA TODAY NETWORK

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – After more than a year of discussion about what it may look like, Big Ten expansion is finally here.

For the Indiana football program, that will be felt in the most tangible way yet as it travels to UCLA for its Big Ten opener on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. ET at the Rose Bowl Stadium.

Although it's Curt Cignetti's first season with the Hoosiers, the 14-year head coaching veteran has an established way of doing things, and it's worked to the tune of a 121-35 record.

"You know how I run my program," Cignetti told Indiana play-by-play broadcaster Don Fischer Thursday night on the Inside Indiana Football radio show. "I'm very structured and organized."

Cignetti credits part of his approach to road game travel to Walt Harris, the Pittsburgh head coach from 1997-2004. Cignetti was the quarterbacks and tight ends coach under Harris from 1997-99.

"[Harris] was the first guy I was around that wanted to get to the hotel as late as possible Friday night, do everything on Friday on your campus," Cignetti said. "That way the players don't miss much class. You have your meetings there. You have your walkthrough there. You may eat there or have your snack, depending on if you're flying or not. We did it that way at NC State, and we did it that way at Alabama, too. So my routine has worked for me, so I'm not changing it."

Due to the time change and cross-country flight for Saturday's game in Pasadena, Calif., Cignetti has to adjust Indiana travel schedule a bit more than usual.

For a typical road game, Cignetti said assistant coaches would come into the office around 9 a.m. on Friday, and the staff would meet with the team around 3 p.m.

But this Friday, Cignetti said coaches will come in at 7 a.m. ET, and they'll meet with the team at 11:30 a.m. The rest of the day goes as follows.

"Friday, I'll talk to the team for about five minutes. We'll do special teams for 25 and offensive and defensive meetings for about an hour-plus and then have about a 25 minute walk through on the field," Cignetti said.

"Then players go in, shower, get a snack, get on the bus, go to Indianapolis and charter out from there. Probably get another snack and about a four-hour flight to L.A. Of course the time change, so we touch down in LAX, I believe around 6:30 [Pacific Time]. So get to the hotel in about an hour and 20 minutes from what I understand, and we'll have a dinner for them, show 'em a hype video and put 'em to bed. Now it will only be about 9 o'clock west coast time, but it'll be midnight our time, so I'm sure a lot of people are looking forward to catching up on some sleep on the plane."

The game is scheduled to kick off at 4:30 PT, which is 7:30 p.m. ET in Bloomington. This is a more extreme travel situation than most, but Cignetti has tried not to change his routine much, aside from moving Friday's schedule up a few hours.

"When you walk off the field Thursday, I think all the coaches will probably feel a little rushed right now in terms of things they normally do post-practice Thursday, leading up to the Friday meetings," Cignetti said. "But we'll be fine."

Fischer later asked Cignetti if he feels that his team understands there are rules it has to obey throughout this kind of trip.

"Well I mean, look. We put a lot of time into this and investment and the players want to be as good as they can be, they want the team to be as good as it can be, and the coaches jobs are to develop the players so they can be as good as they can be and the team can be as good as it can be," Cignetti said. "And so that requires some special qualities and characteristics and focus and commitment and discipline and the ability to keep your eye on the bullseye, what's important, and eliminate the noise and the clutter."

"You know, this isn't like in 3rd grade, 4th grade when you go on a road trip and you come back and show and tell, right. That isn't what this is. We're gonna play a football game on a 100-yard field. It happens to be out in California, okay. That's the deal."

Indiana enters its Big Ten opener with a 2-0 record after a 31-7 win over Florida International and a 77-3 win over Western Illinois. Cignetti said he liked that the Hoosiers played with energy and intensity from the first to last snap against Western Illinois, because games against inferior opponents can sometimes get sloppy.

"We've done a lot of good things in those games, but we haven't played a top-25 team," Cignetti said. "Let's face it, okay. But I've seen progress and I've seen development in individuals, units and we have confidence right now."

He has seen quarterback Kurtis Rourke progress on the field and in his leadership, and he was glad to see so many Hoosiers cheering each other on during the game.

Cignetti also liked that the score allowed him to play a vast majority of the roster. Cignetti was intrigued by the performances of backups like Charlie Becker, Khobie Martin, Rolijah Hardy, Ta'Derius Collins and several young offensive linemen, who played late in the game.

Cignetti thought Indiana's secondary got away with a few coverage mistakes, which will hurt them against better opponents.

"I'm not going to say I like where we're at right now because I don't think you can ever like where you're at when you're in season," Cignetti said. "You can like where you're at when the season's over, but not right now. You gotta keep striving forward."

But overall, Cignetti has seen growth in his program since taking over in December.

"I felt like we made a tremendous progress in our culture from the day I got hired 'til we played our first game, but we had to put it on the field," Cignetti said. "The proof had to be in the pudding, and the only way you can measure that is on-field performance."

The Hoosiers face their biggest test to this point of the season on Saturday against UCLA.