IU Talking Points: Curt Cignetti's past says don't discount Tyler Cherry in QB competition
BLOOMINGTON – Philip Rivers and Davis Cheek.
One name, you probably know. Former Colts quarterback, spent most of his career with San Diego, standout at North Carolina State before that.
The other may be less familiar. Cheek played high school football at David W. Butler, in Matthews, N.C. He signed with Elon, where he finished his college career second all-time in program history in passing yards, attempts, completions and touchdowns. Cheek has since split his pro career between the NFL and other North American leagues.
Cheek, like Rivers, started as a true freshman. And Cheek — like Rivers — quarterbacked for Curt Cignetti.
As Indiana prepares for its first spring practice under its first-year head coach, that bit of history might be worth keeping in mind.
“They were both freshmen that enrolled early, won the job, and we had great years with them as freshmen,” Cignetti told IndyStar in a sitdown interview this week. “Everything’s earned, not given, right? It’ll play out on the field. That’s where it always begins.”
Cignetti’s history lesson came in the context of a wider offensive discussion, given the Hoosiers turned over all but one coach and added new faces at virtually every position on that side of the ball this winter.
A longtime offensive coach, Cignetti makes no secret of his involvement in his scheme, even as he’s kept playcalling duties in coordinator Mike Shanahan’s hands for years now. There will be questions for Cignetti, Shanahan and staff to sort through along the line, at wide receiver, at tight end and at running back, where Cignetti said he believes the Hoosiers have added “speed, quickness, juice” not present last season.
But all conversations will justifiably start with quarterback. IU added Ohio transfer Kurtis Rourke, who Cignetti said is approaching his ideal playing weight after injury and rehabilitation limited Rourke’s buildup to the 2023 season. And the Hoosiers return Tayven Jackson, who Cignetti said has “had some good moments” and “had some rough moments” in an Indiana uniform.
The third name he tossed into the mix prompted the references to Rivers and Cheek.
“Tyler Cherry, to me, is a really impressive young guy,” Cignetti said, “and I’m anxious to see how he does out there.”
Cherry was the gem of Cignetti’s rapidly assembled 2024 high school class, a four-star quarterback from Center Grove whose recruitment reopened when Mike Elko left Duke for Texas A&M. Cherry kept the Blue Devils in the frame for a while, before eventually choosing Indiana over Michigan State.
He enrolled in January and will participate in spring practice, after finishing his high school career Center Grove’s all-time leader in passing yards, completions, touchdowns and completion percentage.
Like any coach, Cignetti will approach the coming spring season with an open mind. He’s got more experienced options, but history warns against assuming Cherry is purely an option for the future. Cignetti will give his true freshman an opportunity.
What Tyler Cherry's commitment means: 'Keeping this guy home is a pretty big deal.'
Expect roster additions
A recruiting coordinator at each of his stops as an assistant between 1993-2010, Cignetti has long trained himself to think wholistically about roster construction and management. And a student of the same game his father, Frank, coached across a hall-of-fame career, Cignetti sees evolution as crucial to any coach’s success.
He’s made sure to join those philosophies even just in the past three months.
The collision of the transfer portal, NIL rights and the ongoing struggle over governance in college athletics have created a tumultuous landscape for coaches. The rules they work under shift constantly, and demands with them. Even Cignetti’s Indiana tenure, brief as it’s been so far, has ridden that change.
“When I was hired,” he said “we were living by a different transfer rule.”
Cignetti referred to a temporary restraining order granted by a federal judge in December effectively disallowing the NCAA from enforcing its one-time transfer exception.
Previously, athletes could only transfer once without penalty across their careers, twice if their second transfer fell under the umbrella of the graduate exception. With the TRO in place, the only obstacle to limitless transfer would be academic requirements — i.e. athletes would still be bound by things like grades and semester timelines, but theoretically, nothing else.
Originally set in December to last 14 days, that ruling has since been left open indefinitely. Provided the NCAA does not defy said ruling, and athletes are granted unlimited end-of-semester transfers for the foreseeable future, Cignetti expects to see a busier-than-normal spring portal window.
One, it should be said, Cignetti plans to be active in as well.
“You’re going to see a little more movement at the end of spring, across the country, than you normally would,” he said.
While Cignetti didn’t go into specific positions — it stands to reason he’ll need spring practice to sort through a finalized list of needs — he sounded very much like a coach prepared to, as he said in a recent Zoom news conference, “thrive” within whatever rules are in place.
“We have some needs still that we’ll have to address after spring,” he told IndyStar. “This roster is not completed yet. But I do think we will be very much improved.”
Appreciating Trey Galloway’s emergence
This has been a curious and probably at times challenging season for Trey Galloway.
The senior guard from Culver, a willing 3-and-D impact starter last season who ceded most lead-guard responsibility to Jalen Hood-Schifino, wasn’t necessarily supposed to see as much of the ball this winter as he has. Mike Woodson said after Tuesday’s win against Wisconsin he “go(es) to bed at night thinking about what this team could have been like if we had X earlier,” referring to Xavier Johnson, the Hoosiers’ oft-injured sixth-year captain.
Ankle/foot and elbow injuries have limited Johnson, Galloway’s co-captain, to just 15 of a possible 28 games so far this season. Johnson scored five points and committed five turnovers in his return from the latter problem Tuesday.
In Johnson’s absence, Galloway has been asked to be a little bit of a lot of different things for the Hoosiers, some roles coming more naturally than others. None, perhaps, has been so surprising as his emergence at point guard.
Galloway logged 12 assists in Tuesday’s win over Wisconsin, his second such single-game number in the Hoosiers’ last four. For reference, Johnson managed the feat once with IU, in a March 2022 loss at Purdue, while Yogi Ferrell never posted a 12-assist game across his four years in Bloomington.
In fact, only five Hoosiers have managed at least 12 assists in a single game more than once in their careers: Isiah Thomas (4), Quinn Buckner (2), Bobby Wilkerson (2), Jamal Meeks (2) and now Galloway.
Across 16 regular-season league games thus far, Galloway has 10 games of at least five assists. That’s the same number Johnson finished with in 2021-22, when he posted the fifth-best season in program history in assists (172). Ferrell finished his best single season (195 assists in 2015-16) with 11 such performances.
At time of writing, Galloway’s Big Ten-only assist rate of 28.4% matches Ferrell’s best single-season number, though it’s some distance behind Johnson’s 36.8% two years ago. All that against Galloway’s turnover rate of just 17.8%, sound for someone who handles the ball so often.
These aren’t meant to suggest Galloway is better than those comparisons, or even that he’s the same sort of guard who approaches his creative duties in the same way. It’s simply meant to contextualize his adaptation into a role he wasn’t expected to have to embrace so completely this season.
Galloway won’t have begun this season planning to become Indiana’s de facto point guard. But he’s undeniably grown into the role, at a rate of production it should be said compares favorably to recent predecessors.
“We’ve got a lot of trust in Galloway,” Woodson said Tuesday. “No doubt about that.”
TRIVIA
In keeping with the theme, only three Hoosiers have posted a single game of at least 12 assists in this century. Trey Galloway and Xavier Johnson are two. Who is the third?
ODDS & ENDS
∎ A road sweep at Baylor bumped IU baseball to No. 20 in this week’s D1Baseball Top 25. The Hoosiers’ midweek loss at Purdue-Fort Wayne will probably drag them a bit, but with games this weekend in Texas against Alabama, Dallas Baptist and Arizona, Indiana will have opportunity to make amends quickly.
∎ Mackenzie Mgbako was named Big Ten freshman of the week Monday, his second such honor this season. Mgbako averaged 14.5 points and 4.5 rebounds per game across two contests last week.
∎ If IU’s women’s basketball team beats Maryland at home Sunday, and Iowa loses either of its last two games, the Hoosiers would secure the No. 2 seed in the Big Ten tournament. If Iowa wins out, the Hawkeyes would move to No. 2, their last-day win (in this scenario) over Ohio State providing a tiebreaker as Indiana finished 0-1 against the Buckeyes this season. IU could still secure a share of the regular-season conference title by beating Maryland and seeing Ohio State lose out, beginning with defeat against unranked Michigan on Wednesday night (game played before press time).
∎ One last programming reminder: The IU women play their regular-season finale Sunday against Maryland on Peacock. It’s the last regular-season game on Peacock for either the men or women this winter. The men do have two CBS games upcoming, at Maryland on Sunday and then home to Michigan State the following Sunday. IU’s trip to Minnesota next midweek will be broadcast on BTN.
ANSWER
Trey Galloway (2/18/24 vs. Northwestern, 2/27/24 vs. Wisconsin) and Xavier Johnson (3/5/22 at Purdue) are two of three Hoosiers with at least 12 assists in a single game since the turn of the century. To find the third, you’d have to rewind all the way back to the Mike Davis era.
That’s when Tom Coverdale managed the same number of assists in a game against Alaska-Anchorage, on Nov. 21, 2001. Coverdale also posted an 11-assist game later in that same season, and he finished a January 2003 game against Northwestern with 10 dimes.
Follow IndyStar reporter Zach Osterman on Twitter: @ZachOsterman.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana football coach Curt Cignetti says to expect busy spring portal
