The Hoosiers remain undefeated after surviving Northwestern, but Cignetti made it clear on Monday that Indiana can't afford to keep playing such inconsistent football as Big Ten play continues.
The Indiana Hoosiers are 4-0 and coming off another victory, but Curt Cignetti isn't interested in letting the record convince anyone that IU is playing its best football.
Following Indiana's 29-23 win over Northwestern, Cignetti delivered a blunt assessment of his team's performance Monday.
The good news, in his mind, was simple: Indiana found a way to win a close game.
The bad news was everything that came before it.
"Positive is we were in a close game and prevailed. There is value in that," Cignetti said. "Negative is we didn't play well. We were very inconsistent. We got to play better. We're not going to go very far playing the way we played on Friday night."
The numbers from the Northwestern game help explain his frustration.
Indiana rushed for 270 yards while holding Northwestern to just 30 on the ground, a dominant statistical performance that ordinarily would suggest a comfortable victory. Instead, the Hoosiers needed to make plays late to escape with a six-point win.
Cignetti pointed directly at the mistakes that kept the game close.
Through Indiana's first 25 offensive plays, 12 included either penalties, critical missed assignments or missed opportunities. The offense also took nearly 22 minutes to find its rhythm, and Indiana went into halftime with only a 12-0 lead despite Cignetti believing it should have been much larger.
Defensively, Indiana had Northwestern's offense largely under control before things changed in the third quarter.
With roughly 11 minutes remaining in the third quarter and Northwestern facing 3rd and 13, Indiana allowed quarterback Aidan Chiles to escape the pocket. From there, the Wildcats began finding success through the air and eventually scored on four consecutive drives.
That sequence turned what could have been a comfortable victory into a game that remained in doubt until the final moments.
Still, Cignetti isnt dismissing what Indiana accomplished.
"I give our guys credit for making the plays at the end, but we got to improve," he said.
That may be the most important takeaway heading into Saturday night's road trip to Rutgers. Indiana will face its first true road environment of the season at SHI Stadium, where Rutgers is expecting a sellout crowd for its homecoming game. Cignetti emphasized that his veteran-heavy forster doesn't need to overthink the environment.
"It's a business trip," he said. "We've got to prepare well this week and put it between the white lines."
The challenge will be doing exactly that while eliminating the mistakes that nearly cost Indiana against Northwestern. The Hoosiers have already shown that they can dominate stretches of games. They have also shown they can make enough plays late to win when things get tight.
Now Cignetti wants the consistency to match the results. Indiana's rushing attack is already producing at a high level, its receiving corps continues to develop and several young players are making progress. Cignetti also provided encouraging injury news Monday, saying running back Turbo Richard and Rolijah Hardy are both day-to-day and that he is optimistic they can play against Rutgers.
But the margin for error becomes smaller on the road.
Cignetti's message heading into Week 5 is therefore less about celebrating a 4-0 start and more about making sure Indiana doesn't need another late escape.
"We got to get a lot better," he said.
For a team with bigger goals than simply getting through September undefeated, that's the standard Cignetti is demanding.
