UCLA Football Preview: Indiana's Coaching Staff Mostly Intact After Last Year's Playoff Run
Plus, Hoosier the Bison has returned and a look at Indiana's special teams.
This Saturday, the UCLA Bruins will travel to Bloomington, Indiana for a game against the Indiana Hoosiers. Kickoff is set for 9 am ET on Fox’s B1G Noon Saturday. Gus Johnson, Joel Klatt and Jenny Taft will call the game.
One thing that fans will undoubtedly notice is Indiana’s new/old mascot, Hoosier the Bison. The original Bison mascot came to life in 1965. Originally, the plan was to have a live bison, but officials weren’t keen on the idea of having actual livestock and that idea was abandoned in favor of a costumed student. While the Indiana website indicates that the bison costume was officially retired in 1969, he continued to appear occasionally through the Lee Corso years before finally disappearing in 1974.
While the bison lived on as the mascot of Nick’s English Hut, a bar located a block off campus, it wasn’t until COVID hit in 2020 that humanities professor Paul Gutjahr started the process of reviving the bison mascot. He started giving away shirts featuring the bison and students grabbed the bull, err bison, by the horns.
Of course, it’s fitting that Corso played a part in bringing the bison mascot back. When College Gameday visited Bloomington last year, the Hoosiers had no headgear for him to put on when their former coach made his final pick of that episode. Instead, he had to put on an Indiana hat.
As the school year progress, student government officially passed the Bring Back the Bison Act of 2024, and Hoosier the Bison officially returned with the start of football season this year.
That may be one of the biggest differences between this year’s Hoosiers and last year’s Indiana team which went 11-2 and made the CFP as there was just one change on the team’s coaching staff.
Last season, Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti took the Indiana Hoosier football team to heights never seen before in the program’s long history. They won their first ten games under the former James Madison coach before losing to eventual national champion Ohio State in Columbus. The Hoosiers were seeded 10th in the College Football Playoff, but lost to the 7th seeded Notre Dame Fighting Irish in the first round.
Cignetti earned multiple Coach of the Year honors as a result of his program turnaround.
And, he has proven this season that the Hoosiers were not a one-year fluke, or as Tim Skipper might say one-hit wonders. This year’s Indiana team has won their first seven games of the season and are now ranked #2 in the nation heading into this weekend’s game.
Cignetti recently signed a long-term extension, his second since Indiana hired him, making him one of the highest-paid coaches in the country. So, scratch him off your UCLA Coaching Search Hot Board. Cignetti will now make about $11.6 million per year through 2033.
Of course, it’s normal that when a team achieves tremendous success that other teams come looking to hire away the assistant coaches in an attempt to bring the same magic to their team.
Amazingly, Cignetti lost only one assistant as a result of last season’s success. That was quarterback coach Tino Sunseri, who flamed out after just four games as UCLA’s offensive coordinator. That means both of Cignetti’s coordinators are back.
Indiana’s offensive coordinator is still the other Mike Shanahan. As I pointed out last season, this isn’t “the former head coach of the Raiders and Broncos. This Mike Shanahan played wide receiver at Pitt and has coached with Cignetti at each of his head coaching stops.” Of course, his offense destroyed the Bruins last season, 42-13.
The Hoosiers’ defensive coordinator is still Bryant Haines. Like Shanahan, Haines came to Indiana last season with Cignetti and all three members of the Hoosier brain trust previously coached together at James Madison. Last season, Haines’ defense held Eric Bienemy’s UCLA offense to just thirteen points. Can Jerry Neuheisel’s Bruin offense do better this season?
Let’s look at the Hoosier special teams.
Special Teams
Redshirt sophomore Nico Radicic has been the Hoosiers’ primary kicker this season. He leads the team with 64 points and he’s a perfect eight-for-eight on field goal attempts and 40-for-40 on PATs. The only thing he really hasn’t done this season is kickoff. He has only kicked off once for 45 yards.
Meanwhile, the roles are reversed for super senior Brendan Francke. Francke has kicked off 50 times for the Hoosiers and he is averaging 64.36 yards per kickoff. He has been called on three times for field goal attempts, once against Old Dominion and twice against Oregon. He missed the 52-yarder against Monarchs but made a 58-yarder and a 22-yarder against the Ducks. He hasn’t tried a PAT.
Redshirt freshman Josh Placzek kicked off five times against Indiana State, averaging 57.8 yards per kickoff.
Senior Mitch McCarthy and sophomore Quinn Warren have split the punting duties this year. Warren appeared to have the edge early in the season. He punted six times in the first month of the year, averaging 48 yards per punt with three inside the 20 and three having a length of more than 50 yards, but he hasn’t played since the Illnois game. Like Warren, McCarthy punted once against Old Dominion, but he punted four times against Iowa and five times against Oregon. He is averaging 39.4 yards per punt. So, his kicks are significantly shorter. While four of his punts landed inside the 20 and one was a fair catch, his longest was just 47 yards.
Only two Hoosiers have returned any kickoffs. Redshirt senior running back Roman Hemby has returned three kickoffs for 79 yards. His longest was a 34-yarder. Grad student Solomon Vanhorse is back for another season and he has returned one kickoff for five yards.
Senior receiver Jonathan Brady has returned 14 punt returns this season. His longest was a 91-yard return for a touchdown, making him the infamous dangerous return man, even though he is averaging just 18.14 yards per return. D’Angelo Ponds and Makai Jackson have also returned one punt each. Ponds blocked a punt against Illinois then scooped the ball and ran it in 22 yards for a score while Jackson returned his for 11 yards.
Go Bruins!!!
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Indiana is a legitimately good team but it's hard to tell how good because they have a very soft schedule until the Big 10 championship, as does Ohio State.
Indiana is 25.5 favorite. Would not bet this game because from what I saw of our offense last week, it is hard to think that our offense will score that much. I hope ,as some have mentioned, that Jerry was holding back on plays for this week. Also, still smoldering from my 3 1/2 points I gave to Maryland at Caesar Sports Book.