I fear that Cignetti…
- Thread starter gator mcCluskey
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He had to do something to reset the overall TEAM mindset/approach so in that sense bringing in the JMU guys seems to be a good move...
My only concern is that he may actually believe JMU was capable of playing a Big Ten schedule and still having a winning record last Fall... If he's deluded himself into believing that then we might be in for a long season... Confidence is a good thing to have... Hubris..., not so much...
Right now I believe our greatest weakness is at Linebacker, specifically MLB... If Cignetti truly believes he can win while playing his All Sunbelt guy from JMU at that position as the starter I fear he's in for a rude welcome to Big Ten Football...
I'm extremely disappointed that we haven't brought in at least one more LB from the Portal to go along with the guy from UMass...
Perhaps we still have a shot at Nigel Glover -
There might be a slim chance we could grow our own from one or two of these guys:
Reece Bellin - Football - Indiana University Athletics
Reece Bellin (27) DB - 2023 (Freshman Season) Did not see any game action and redshirted his initial collegiate season ... joined the program as a walk on du...iuhoosiers.com
Anthony Chung - Football - Indiana University Athletics
Anthony Chung (31) DB - 2023 (Freshman Season) Did not see any game action and redshirted his initial collegiate season ... joined the program as a walk-on d...
Clay Conner - Football - Indiana University Athletics
Clay Conner (36) DB - 2023 (Freshman Season) Did not see any game action and redshirted his initial collegiate season ... joined the program as a walk-on dur...
Roman Purcell - Football - Indiana University Athletics
Roman Purcell (12) QB - 2023 (Sophomore Season) Did not see any game action.
That would probably require them to put on 12 to 23 pounds of muscle in 3 and a half months while also learning the position during the summer (actually probably even more as a decent sized Big Ten level Inside Linebacker usually runs at about 230+ pounds of "good weight" just to survive the battering they sustain over a full Big Ten season) which might be a really Big ask but from what I'm seeing we're extremely thin at that Inside Linebacker position and could use all the help we can get...
I saw your same observations but imagine acceptable results at LB(MLB)will correlate with bolstering the DL and as the LB's competition settles. I'll wager a Mrs. Grant's son there'll be a couple fisticuffs development during those competitions. In my eye that happens organically and is not all bad. Fierce Competition = IUFB Advancing!
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What game(s) are you specifically referring to? Didn't see that at all in the spring game.
Plus all those JMU guys know the expectations and system. They work too. I think it’s a good thing getting so many guys that know all the things Cigg wants.
Go watch him against the decent teams they played last Fall.
Same with the rest of them against decent talent... Bringing in a bunch of guys who went one game over .500 against the only decent teams they played can't be considered any kind of a major upgrade in talent. (As I've posted before, JMU only played against 5 decent teams last Fall and they lost to two of them - AF & App. St..., both of whom would have struggled to finish in the upper third of the Big Ten)...
All that said they did win against the teams they should have consistently so that's a foundation to build on but believing they'll be a bunch of world beaters able to match up against top level Big Ten talent is unlikely at best...
Now I like Cignetti and I think he's generally on the right track but I think he's being either disingenuous or foolish if he believes his JMU guys are going to take the Big Ten by storm...
The AF game was during a bowl without Cig and other opt outs. Don't put much stock into that.
Put it this way, JMU finished 44th in Sagarin. Only B10 teams to finish higher were Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, Maryland, and Wisconsin. They were basically better than every B10 team minus Wisconsin who finished one spot higher. Now I have no clue how that would translate playing out a 9 game conference schedule, but JMU was as good as anybody in the West in a one off game. I'll take his 23 and 24 year old all-conference players any day of the week especially if they're coached by him.
Ironic, since Allen's later classes were considered pretty good, weren't they?
I'm anxious to see our LBs. I agree with 76-1 that Fisher didn't look all that great in the bowl game, but maybe there were other factors.
Our DBs last year were awful, partly due to a weak pass rush. I certainly don't think we'll be any worse there
Hopefully he'll have a better DL in front of him. Cig is high on him, so it will be interesting.
Time for some of Allen's LB recruits to up their game.
Hope you're right and I'm wrong... Just don't see it...
CJ West, Carpenter automatically makes Aiden Fisher et al more effective LBs, being able to scrap the action at the LOS.
If you take the best from 2 different mediocre rosters (IU and JMU) then at the very least you have better depth even if it's not better top end talent.
Better depth generally equals better competition and pushing each other to improve. I think most would agree we also have better coaching.
With so many changes, it will be hard to guess where this team will place in the big ten this fall but I'm guessing we have a chance to get to a bowl game.
Dude I watched highlights of the Virginia game and outside of a blocked punt I saw the same thing as in the bowl game and the spring game. Im just not getting it. Sadly they had a senior linebacker that looked like a stud so they did have linebacker play, just not from this dude.
And Virginia wasn't actually very good last Fall (3-9)...
You're harshing my buzz, man....
I am optimistic about CCC. Not since Hoeppner has IU hired a proven head coach, albeit at the lower level.
There's a lot of screwed up stuff. In 5th grade, there was a kid in my class-- we will call him Frank. Frank had pretty fine metal scooby doo lunch box and a very large regular thermos that he would bring to school. I had a sweet Seattle Seahawks lunch box and my buddy who lived across the street had a killer Six Million dollar man lunch box. Anyway, in Frank's thermos every day was a steaming 10oz of hot dog water. Frank loved to drink warm hot dog water, so his mom boiled hot dogs every day and saved the water and put it into his thermos. I'm wondering if Frank is your guy @DANC?
What about the MLB from Arkansas, Kaiden Turner, who had some starts late in the ‘22 season as a true frosh? Is he still around? Can’t say I recall him last season.
I'm actually really quite surprised that LB would be a weakness. Our new DC was an excellent LB up at BsU and I was hoping that would translate to some great LB play here...
Oh well..., we still have summer workouts and Fall Camp to find a MLB who can diagnose the play and fill the hole Before the RB gets 7 yards down the field..
Oh well..., we still have summer workouts and Fall Camp to find a MLB who can diagnose the play and fill the hole Before the RB gets 7 yards down the field..
I think it was Kaiden in the spring game I thought at least laid a decent thump when he did get in on a play. I thought from that he was heavier than Aiden, buts he's lighter according to the roster.
I think now that we've added some, and dline, we won't be too bad. Coaches believe in Aiden, and we have a little depth. We've just had a couple more recent real good mlb. They can't all be the same level.
I'm no longer worried. That's coach's job.
I think now that we've added some, and dline, we won't be too bad. Coaches believe in Aiden, and we have a little depth. We've just had a couple more recent real good mlb. They can't all be the same level.
I'm no longer worried. That's coach's job.
lol, yeah I am coming off negative. I am still thrilled with this staff.
I think he is backup. I actually thought he looked decent in the spring game. I was high on him out of highschool as he reminded me a lot of Mcfadden.
I think all our LBs looked small....the QB dwarfed them....but I agree that KT looked pretty active........
Beware irrational exuberanceI didn't say we did or didn't have talent. I am saying that simply declaring where they transferred to is meaningless if the person doesn't play or does and is garbage. Right? So we can't close the case on this during the offseason, you need to wait and see what happens.
You may want to learn how to quote someone correctly before eating a turd in front of everyone.
I watch Fisher in several JMU games last year after Cignetti was hired and the kid transferred here.
Does he have elite speed and freak athleticism? No.
However, what I noticed is he is a leader on defense. He appears to have good technique and fundamentals. He rarely was missing tackles. He stopped guys and wasn’t out of position. And, he plays hard on every play. And, he was the guy calling out alignments.
Now, it remains to be seen against Big Ten level competition but he did play against guys that transferred from P5 schools into the Sun Belt and held his own. He played pretty well against Virginia in their win there and Virginia had transfers from places like Clemson and Iowa State, etc. My hope is that while he isn’t a guy with elite athleticism, he makes up for it being cerebral and fundamentally sound.
I was more impressed with JMU’s DL than IU’s last year. Much more disruptive and guys like Kamara and Carpenter looked better than anybody we had in 2023.
Turner, looked to be just a step too slow in the spring. He doesn’t seem to be at Fisher’s level.
I am not blaming anyone. However you have to assume a guy that is on special teams in college would know that a kick off is a live ball once it travels 10 yards.
From what I remember, no IU player was close enough to the ball after 10 yards to fall on it. It went in a gap between players that shouldn't have been there if we'd have had more guys on the line for an onside kick.
Just my recollection. I could be wrong.
Hendershot was close enough to fall on it. They were in their 3-2-2-2-2 which is what they traditionally used instead of a 5-2-2-2. Many people use either 5-4-2 or 5-5- 1 in that situation.
I agree on the value of more competition helping development of our players. I also hope the coaching change helps instill better discipline and improved focus on details and execution. Getting rid of some bad attitudes should also help.
Overall, hoping to see CCC’s arrival be a force multiplier for the returning players
Totally agree a 'force multiplier' is the dynamic Cignetti needs to launch a sound start.
That reminder signals good things to come.
Regarding Fisher at linebacker, I watched the Spring Game at three-quarter speed, focusing exclusively on him every play. He was solid. Three of the four times he was in on a tackle after a pickup of 6 yards or more, he had covered extremely well his receiver (tight end or running back in the flats) then broke off to cross the field and help out on someone else's responsibility. The one exception was in the final drive of the night, when he had a solo tackle on a 2nd-and-ten, a 6-yard run up the middle. I don't know if there was some sort of linebacker stunt blitz on that play, but Isaiah Jones crossed from left to right, in front of Fisher, and then Fisher went from right to left behind him, met the running back, who already had about a positive three yard gain at that point, and hung on for the tackle. It set up a third-and-four in the Red Zone. I will note that Fisher did NOT play the next four--that is, the final four--downs of that touchdown drive. He was replaced by Joshua Rudolph. The reason was not clear to me. Throughout the game I didn't see any breakdowns in his zone coverage (which the defense was doing a lot) and I credited him in on three tackles on gains of three yards or less, one of them a solo.
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Aiden was rotating his shoulder after tackling Bomba for a short gain. Not sure if he had injured his shoulder on that play?
I have to respectfully disagree.
Any other Middle Linebacker, on any other team in the country, would never get off the bench on game day if they consistently allowed the other teams RB's to average 6+ yards per carry on the ground when they're out on the field...
What I saw in the Spring Game was our LB's looking above average in pass coverage and consistently poor against the run and our penciled in starter at MLB looking pathetic...(against the run).
If we don't find someone who can consistently hit guys in, or at least near, the hole and stop the RB's for a 2+ yards per carry average, or less, versus 6+ then, in my opinion, we're in for a really long season against the Big Ten portion of the schedule...
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