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    Former IU football players share their Cignetti stories at the NFL Draft Combine

    Mike SchumannBy IU Football 2 Comments
    Photo by Seth Tow for TDH

    IU football coach Curt Cignetti is known for his glare, especially when he senses complacency.

    Not many stories come out about Cignetti during the season, but they do emerge from former players.  What’s it really like playing for him?

    Former Indiana players Riley Nowakowski, D’Angelo Ponds and Louis Moore shared Cignetti stories at the NFL Draft Combine Thursday.

    Here’s what they had to say.

    HAND THE BALL OFF!!!

    Cignetti is known to get more frustrated when his team has a big lead.

    Nowakowski relayed a moment from the week four 63-10 win over Illinois related to backup quarterback Alberto Mendoza.

    “Bert pulled liked four runs.  We were running inside zone and kept pulling it, kept pulling it, kept pulling it,” Nowakowski said.  “After the fourth time it was like a terrible read he should have handed the ball off.  I think he lost like two yards.

    “In the middle of the game, he (Cignetti) tells our coaches, ‘Get Bert over here.’ Bert’s like, ‘What, it’s the middle of the game?’ He goes, ‘We’re not paying you to run the ball. Hand the ball off.’

    “We’re up like 70 points, but he’s pissed off, yelling at Bert. Then he turns back at me, gave me one of his smiles and was like, ‘You like that?'”

    BOWL GAME?

    Cignetti is perhaps most famous for his “I win, Google me” line.

    Cornerback D’Angelo Ponds’ father got a reminder of Cignetti’s insistence on not creating self-imposed limitations.

    “I’ll tell you a story of when I transferred from JMU to Indiana,” Ponds said.

    “I took my visit to Indiana and I was with my Dad at the visit. We were meeting with Coach Cig and we were going over the schedule of who we were going to go play. My Dad was like, ‘Oh yeah, we should definitely go to a bowl game, no doubt.’

    “And Coach Cig looked at him like, ‘Bowl game? We’re gonna win it all.’ And it came true. … It was a full circle moment right there.”

    STILL LOVE YA

    The safeties had Cignetti frustrated early in the 2025 season.

    A mistake by Louis Moore in the UCLA game particularly drew his ire.

    Moore had to watch some film with the head coach.

    “He had got onto me one time after the UCLA game,”  Moore said.  “I had gotten a penalty.

    “He was just getting onto me, but he was watching film at the same time. He didn’t make eye contact with me. He was just clicking on his thing, I was over there, and he was just clicking on it and just getting on me.

    “He’s like, ‘You got me?’ I was like, ‘Yes, sir, I got you.’

    “And then I got up, and he was like, ‘Louis, I love you.’ I’m like, ‘I love you, too, coach.'”

    For complete coverage of IU football, GO HERE.

    The Daily Hoosier –“Where Indiana fans assemble when they’re not at Assembly”

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