Indiana’s 27-17 loss to Notre Dame in the first round of the College Football Playoff was not head coach Curt Cignetti’s finest performance.
While a few late Hoosiers touchdowns made the score much more respectable, the reality is that Indiana was a step slow and a bit outmatched. But that was all buoyed by Cignetti’s timid decision-making.
Nothing embodied that more than Cignetti deciding to punt twice while down 17 in the second half. Despite the fact IU made it’s name with risky offensive gambles in the regular season, the Hoosiers opted to punt on 4th-and-3 from their own 32 with three minutes left in the third, then punted again on 4th-and-11 from the Notre Dame 48-yard line with 10 minutes left in the fourth.
“I didn’t want to punt, but we were doing nothing on offense and our defense was fighting,” Cignetti said after the game. “You know, that was the only positive really, that I could draw, is our defense was still fighting because our offense was doing nothing.
“…I didn’t want to go 4th-and-10, you know it’s like you’re wishing and hoping. You have nothing to base it on, that you can convert 4th-and-10 at that point, right? There’s still time, if you punt to win the game. That was the reasons why I didn’t want to do it, but I felt it was the best move.”
You could argue — and many will — that Indiana’s defense continuing to hold up is as much of a reason to go for it on offense as it is to punt. Especially since Notre Dame went on a nine-play, 78-yard touchdown drive that ate up more than five minutes of clock after the second punt.
It was pretty much curtains on the Hoosiers’ season after that.
