LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Curt Cignetti doesn't do costumes.
He's not a mask guy. Not into makeup.
As a kid, he said Monday, Halloween meant something simpler. "My mother would make me a homemade Superman or Batman outfit because we didn't have a lot of money," he said. "The costume wasn't as important to me as getting all the candy."
That's still true. Indiana's second-year head coach isn't trying to dress up his team. The Hoosiers aren't wearing borrowed swagger or pretending to be something they're not. They're just knocking on doors and looking to get what's theirs: turnovers, big plays, wins.
Louisville | Kentucky | Indiana | Eric Crawford
The costume doesn't matter. Only the candy.
But Indiana fans know better than anyone that not every house on the block is friendly.
Some flip off the porch light. Some leave you with raisins. Others hit you with motion-activated goblins in your face.
And no fan base in college football is more conditioned to expecting skeletons to come flying out of the bushes than Indiana's.
Even now — even at 8-0 and ranked No. 2 in the nation, even after a 56-6 annihilation of UCLA — Indiana fans still remember the haunted house that is their own history. They've seen the walls shake. They've felt the trap doors. They can see ghosts behind every goalpost. So as the Hoosiers head to College Park this weekend, no one's taking Maryland lightly.
Certainly not Cignetti.
"They're a good football team," he said. "They've got a freshman quarterback who's 6-5, 230 and can run. Their defense flies around. They create turnovers. They've got 22 sacks and 14 interceptions. They're only giving up 17 points a game."
This isn't some patsy opponent. Maryland had a 20-0 lead on Washington late in the third quarter. Lost to Nebraska by a field goal. Lost to UCLA in the final seconds.
They're also coming off a bye week. They'll be at home, rested, motivated. They led the nation in turnover margin and rank second in total interceptions with 14. The kinds of stat that can flip a game and haunt a box score.
In other words, it's a trap game with a trapdoor. The kind that Indiana teams of the past would walk straight into.
But this doesn't look like those Indiana teams. The Hoosiers are plus-eight in turnover margin (11th in the nation). They ran for 262 yards last week. Their defense is giving up just three points per second half. They've won 11 Big Ten games by double digits under Cignetti — as many as IU had in the previous decade combined.
The "Fake" Curt Cignetti, shown during the Fox Big Noon Kickoff before Indiana's win over UCLA.
This team is not playing make-believe. It's making believers.
They have their identity, and they're not giving it up to chase a sugar high. Not even on Halloween weekend.
That's not to say there's no dress-up in Bloomington. In fact, one of the most viral moments from Indiana's win last week was a man in the crowd who bore a striking resemblance to Cignetti himself. Short-sleeve quarter zip, IU ballcap, headset and all. He made it onto the FOX broadcast.
"He's pretty good," Cignetti said Monday with a grin.
But the truth is, this team isn't cosplay-driven, and it's not impersonating anything. It's not acting like a winner.
It's just winning.
Cignetti said that, as a kid, he was all about Reese's and Snickers. Now he's about fundamentals and film study, takeaways and touchdowns.
Either way, he heads to Maryland with a full bag and looking for more.
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