IU football coach Curt Cignetti emphasized Monday that the Hoosiers need to focus on Saturday’s game at Iowa, not continue to bask in last weekend’s 63-10 victory over Illinois.
Quarterback Fernando Mendoza, who threw for five touchdowns, was named Associated Press player of the week.
“Really more interested in moving on to our next opponent, which will be a real challenge at Iowa,” Cignetti said. “Got a lot of respect for Coach (Kirk) Ferentz, everything he's accomplished throughout his career as a head coach and as an assistant too.”
Cignetti has some history with Ferentz, who earlier this season became the Big Ten's all-time winningest coach with 206 career victories.
“You know he was great line coach before he became a head coach and he was graduate assistant at Pitt in 1980 and I was a graduate assistant at Pitt in ‘83 and ‘84, so he came by the office a couple of times and we had the chance to meet,” Cignetti said.
The Hoosiers are 4-0 and ranked No. 11 nationally. Iowa is 3-1. The Hawkeyes won their conference opener against Rutgers. Their only loss was to Iowa State.
“One thing I'm going to say about Iowa, and you guys all know this, they've been running basically the same defense for a long time now,” Cignetti said. “There are tweaks, and they've always played great defense, they've got great special teams, they've always been able to run the ball really well and this quarterback (Mark Gronowski), you know, has been a guy that finds a way to get it done.”
Kickoff is at 3:30 p.m. Saturday.
“The thing about Iowa in general, they will not beat themselves — you will have to beat them,” Cignetti said. “They're not going to beat themselves, and they play really well at home.”
