Indiana enters Saturday afternoon’s visit from Kennesaw State with a 9-0 record at Memorial Stadium in Bloomington under second-year Hoosiers coach Curt Cignetti.Nearly as common as Hoosier home victories over that span? Cignetti caveats that things might have gone differently.The No. 23 Hoosiers (1-0) expect a challenge from the Owls (0-1), to be sure. Kennesaw State lost 10-9 at Wake Forest in its season opener on Aug. 29, missing an extra point and field goal but still hanging tough with a power conference foe.Indiana handled Old Dominion 27-14 a day later, although Cignetti bemoaned missed opportunities to widen the gap, namely a dropped touchdown pass, overthrown TD pass and fumble in the red zone.”Last year we led the country in red-area touchdown percentage,” Cignetti said of his team, which actually was No. 2 at 79.7 percent (Navy was first at 81). “But we’ve got to get better. Doesn’t matter what you did in the past. Gotta get better now. So that’s that.”One more memorable trip inside the Old Dominion 20-yard line ended with Hoosiers quarterback Fernando Mendoza scoring on a 5-yard touchdown run and a 17-7 lead with 3:36 left in the second quarter.A Cal transfer, Mendoza finished 18 of 31 for 193 yards while adding 33 yards on the ground in his Indiana debut.Cignetti’s assessment of Mendoza sounded familiar — encouraged but far from satisfied.”The emphasis with him has been on his processing and decision making,” Cignetti. “And you grade the quarterback based on his decision making and accuracy — has he gone through the right reads, throwing the ball to the right guy and accurately. He’s made progress since he’s been here, but he’s still got to get better.”
