Fernando Mendoza learned the hard way that a big play at Indiana doesn’t buy you much of a victory lap.
The same kind of lesson is now staring at Josh Hoover, even after a sparkling debut in Bloomington. Curt Cignetti wasn’t handing out praise after Hoover’s 13-of-16, four-touchdown, no-interception performance in Indiana’s 52-16 win over North Texas. He was picking apart the details.
Hoover sounded like a quarterback who already knew that was coming. Asked about a 25-yard second-half completion to tight end Brock Schott on a rollout to his right, he gave an answer that suggested he understood exactly how it would look on film.
“Probably not one I’d like to do a lot of the time. Got away with it right there,” Hoover said.
Cignetti agreed, and then kept going.
“He got away with one that he’s not gonna get away with in Big Ten play,” Cignetti said of Hoover’s throw to Schott.
The coach’s critique didn’t stop there. He also zeroed in on Hoover’s long touchdown to Charlie, saying, “And the one long touchdown to Charlie, he’s got to step into that throw better and get it out there and get it up and down.”
Even the sequence that left Hoover with a bloody nose came with a correction. Cignetti said, “The one he got his helmet ripped off, he flipped the protection and really shouldn’t have. So he became unprotected to the side of the blitz,” Cignetti continued.
Hoover stayed in the game and threw a touchdown pass shortly after, but Cignetti still found something to clean up.
“Even then, a hair late and made a little tougher catch for Charlie than it needed to be,” Cignetti said. “Great catch by Charlie.”
Statistically, Hoover’s Indiana debut outpaced what Mendoza and Kurtis Rourke produced in their own openers. Hoover posted a QB rating of 285, compared with Mendoza’s 110.4 and Rourke’s 139.3.
Still, Cignetti wasn’t interested in turning that into a ranking exercise.
He pointed to North Texas’ approach, Indiana’s answers, and the way the Hoosiers’ receivers won their matchups.
“I think we won our one-on-one match-ups. They had a hard time covering us,” Cignetti said.
“They were committed to trying to stop the run best they could. Came out in five down linemen.
That was their goal coming in. They were going to try to do as good as they could against the run and take their chances against the pass, and we won our one-on-ones.”
Hoover came to Indiana knowing exactly what kind of environment he was walking into. After four seasons at TCU under Sonny Dykes, he was looking for the demanding setup he found with Cignetti, offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan and quarterbacks coach Tino Sunseri.
He said the transition was anything but easy.
“It’s a big culture shock coming to a place like this,” Hoover said. “That’s not a dig towards anyone else, but it’s just different the way coach runs it.
I think it was a lot different from some of the things that were asked of me playing quarterback. It took time and I was not comfortable for a long time.
“Then, during this fall camp, we really started to hit our stride midway through, and I felt comfortable.”
That comfort didn’t last once game week arrived.
“Now, all of a sudden, you’re coming into game week, and it’s a whole new process of learning how to go through game week and how we prepare,” Hoover continued.
“Like coach preaches, it’s a continuous process. He’s always got tips and pointers.
I really have so much respect for coach, and anything he tells me, I’m like, ‘Yes, sir, I’ll do it.’ He’s obviously an offensive guy and really, really smart.
Anything that he says, I try to apply immediately.”
For Hoover, that’s the point. The production was there in his first game.
The nitpicking came with it. And in this program, that’s not a problem - it’s the job.
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