'We’re learning.' Curt Cignetti IU football era begins with first spring practice:

BLOOMINGTON – A day of new beginnings for Curt Cignetti started with some navigation.

Cignetti’s first Indiana team began spring practice Thursday, one of 13 the Hoosiers will complete between now and their spring game next month. There are question marks at nearly every position — such is the nature of the modern coaching change — and new faces to put to names after a busy winter in the transfer portal.

But first, Cignetti needed to complete a much more basic task: He needed to determine the shortest route from A to B for the first time.

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“This was new for everybody today,” he told reporters after practice. “It was new for me to go out on the field and practice. Like, how do I even get to the field from my office, and I figured that out and found the shortest way.”

Not everyone found their feet right away — Cignetti walked onto the field for the first time, he said, to find his offensive position groups’ things misarranged — but for day one it went well.

It’s Cignetti’s job to worry about all the days after.

He has a quarterback competition to sort through. On Thursday, Ohio transfer Kurtis Rourke started with the No. 1 offense, returning redshirt sophomore Tayven Jackson worked with the No. 2s, and early enrollee freshman Tyler Cherry (lately of Center Grove) steered the third string.

Cignetti might keep it that way for a while. He might shuffle it tomorrow. A 13-year head coach who tutored QBs in his stops as an assistant before that (and played the position before that) has seen it handled just about every way imaginable.

“Every year has been a little different,” he said.

There will be competition to sort through behind center, at receiver, at running back and tight end.

Cignetti’s defense will have to make do and mend without a handful of players, particularly along Indiana’s defensive line, forced to sit out spring due to various offseason surgeries. And he and his staff will need to sort through a heavily remade roster for leadership, vocal and otherwise.

“We’ll make progress this spring and push it forward and keep working every day to improve and improve the roster,” Cignetti said. “We will see where we are at the end of spring in this wild world of college football. And we'll see what the roster looks like in August. Have to be light on your feet around here, to be a Power 5 or any kind FBS or any kind of college football coach nowadays.”

That leadership is a central focus. Not necessarily permanent or unquestioned, but on a team so substantially changed by the transfer portal, Cignetti will need players who can get their teammates’ attention.

After one practice period Thursday, the staff had James Madison running back transfer Kaelon Black speak. Black, Cignetti said, did the same last season in Harrisonburg and “had a lot of juice,” making him an ideal first-day candidate. He also crucially knows the order of operations and expectations for IU’s new staff, up to and including its head coach, making his talk all the more timely.

“We’re learning,” Cignetti said. “We have players from Indiana that we did not coach last year. There are transfers that we did not coach last year, and we have some guys from JMU that we did coach last year, so I think that will evolve.”

Indiana practiced for one hour, 55 minutes Thursday — Cignetti is remarkably details-oriented — in helmets and unpadded gear. Cignetti jokingly refers to them as pajamas.

Per practice rules, the Hoosiers have one more day dressed down, before they can start adding pads and, therefore, contact. Cignetti’s presided over his share of spring seasons. He knows a healthy team at the end of spring is one of his primary goals. But one remit rises above the rest across these next four weeks.

“The most important thing,” he said, “is that we’re ready to go when we run out of the tunnel for the opener.”

Follow IndyStar reporter Zach Osterman on Twitter: @ZachOsterman.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Curt Cignetti Indiana football era begins with first spring practice