@cabbyfromgreene tweets: “Maybe this question is a bit too early in the Cig reign, but can you give us a 100-day assessment and maybe a comparison to last year’s staff?”

Interesting question. Got my gears turning.

Splitting this into two parts and starting with the 100 days bit, if we’re thinking about this the way we’d analyze a president’s first 100 days, I think there have been plenty of successes — roster rebuild, staffing, effective use of NIL. Obviously, any football coach is going to grapple with the difficulty of not being able to fully prove anything until games start. The kinds of wins we’re talking about will always be tagged with “it doesn’t matter until it’s proven on the field,” which is true, but also sort of unfair in a world where we constantly demand that coaches “win” the portal, or the staffing cycling, or in recruiting. You can’t require someone to prove to you they can operate well in the portal, for example, and then condemn their apparent success as unimportant until they can back it with wins. All you can manage is what’s in front of you, and thus far, Cignetti has done that well, overhauling his roster, and restoring excitement and momentum around a program that had very clearly lost both.

As to the staff question, the key question for me will always be what a coach does when he’s forced to deviate from his plan. So far, by and large, it seems like Cignetti’s gotten what he wanted. He brought a number of coaches with him from James Madison. He signaled early on he wanted to keep Bob Bostad and did so. His other hires happened swiftly and without much apparent trouble. Tom Allen quietly had a lot of the same success, even as he managed a staff split between two coaching tenures because of the nature of his hiring. The tests came when he needed to make decisions evolving beyond his first and clearest idea. He got some of those right (hiring Kalen DeBoer, elevating Kane Wommack) and some of them wrong. In the end, the latter outcomes played a role in IU’s decline at the end of his tenure.

This is all an elaborate way of saying, I guess, that Cignetti seems to have built the staff he wants. That’s important for a coach trying to capitalize on a potentially favorable first-year schedule. Whether it goes well or it goes poorly, the test, for me, will always be how a coach adjusts when he’s made to.

@TreyKnowsBall asks: “What matchup in the Battle 4 Atlantis would you like to see?”

It would be fascinating to see IU play Arizona again. There’s the Oumar Ballo storyline, which would probably dominate the run-up. But Indiana also took two Pac-12 guards that will know Arizona’s schemes better than the average, while Arizona would provide an immediate stress test of whatever two-big stuff the Hoosiers want to try this winter. And it’s the kind of game the Hoosiers are going to need to win in The Bahamas to make the trip worth it (and get something out of an otherwise underwhelming nonconference schedule).

Boring, I know, but the first thing that came to mind.

@nashman92 tweets: “On a scale of 1-10, how relieved is the IU athletic department a) that the 465-69 interchange will be open before football season and b) that the whole I-69 project is essentially finished?”

Seriously, like 26.

It’s not been quite as front of mind since they completed the stretch from Bloomington to Martinsville, and the department stopped having to send employees to time themselves driving alternate routes through Columbus and Spencer and who knows where else just to give people ways around stifling gameday traffic. But the Harding Street exit has been an almighty headache for Indy folks trying to get to Bloomington for football games for too long.

More broadly, I think everyone down our way is happy to see the freeway finally done. I’ve been writing about I-69 construction in some form since college, and I’m not comfortable telling y’all how long ago that was. The completion of the interstate is a welcome sight

1) I get what they’re trying to do. As with most things, if it works, then it will look inspired, and if it fails, it will look silly. Someone picked after Michael Penix will have a better career and people will criticize the Falcons for not picking that player instead, unless Penix turns into Atlanta’s version of Patrick Mahomes (comparing general career path, not overall talent), and the Falcons don’t need to worry about the most important position in football for at least 10 years. That’s my objective take. I have no emotional one, because the Falcons erased my ability to feel real human emotions years ago.

2) Solomon Vanhorse certainly has potential, particularly if he can be as effective in the return game for IU as he was at James Madison. This is cheating, because it’s a nickname, but calling Kurtis Rourke “The Maple Missile” is absolutely something IU fans should appropriate from Ohio.

No, and that’s a mistake that should be rectified as soon as humanly possible. Watch this space.

Listen to Mind Your Banners, our IU Athletics-centric podcast, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Get Exclusive Updates