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As we've got the holidays, coming up, a lot of things going
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Cast for the old Oaken Bucket game in, before things got crazy
for Thanksgiving. I hope you folks are having a
wonderful Thanksgiving break. If you're on it.
Yet, I know if you're in school here at IU, you've been off the
whole week. And I think many of you are at
least going to be able to take Wednesday off.
I hope and certainly Thursday. Hopefully, you'll be able to
take some time with friends and family.
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Wolves and have lots of good food and other.
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football, back in action and they are going to be taking on
the Purdue Boilermakers. This coming, Saturday 3:30 p.m.
kick and the Hoosiers standing at 4:00 and 7:00.
On the season right now. And with a chance of, you know,
at least being in an outside conversation for a five and
seven bulb, it probably not going to happen.
I think Indiana a little bit down.
The list of teams that might be considered because of a PR
because of the the number of people in the transfer portal.
But we'd have to wait and see, as it's at least a possibility
and it's not a completely out of the realm of thought.
Process ability Rutgers made it last year with the 5 and 7
record got to play in a bowl. Obviously for this Indiana
Squad, you sit around right now after that win against Michigan
State on the road and you can't help but just kind of
contemplate the ifs. You know if Indiana is able to
knock off Nebraska and that game earlier on the season or if
they're able to win that game at home against Maryland, or if
they're able to win the game at Rutgers any of those three, they
could be playing for essentially, guaranteed Bowl
eligibility. This coming weekend.
And you know, if it went to of those, they're playing for, you
know, a better Bowl. So disappointing to say the
least. But I guess, no crying over
spilt milk at this point. Indiana with quite an
opportunity in front of them right now to potentially beat
Purdue and win. Back.
The old Oaken Bucket, they've obviously lost it last year in
what was a pretty horrific game as Indiana?
Just did not compete at all up at Ross?
Stadium lost that game, 44 27. It probably wasn't that close.
But Indiana under Tom Allen has not had a tremendous amount of
success against Purdue only one win.
And of course, that was an overtime back in 2019.
They lost their chance at playing Purdue in 2020 because
of covid. But, you know, 2022 not entirely
out of the realm of possibility. For this Indiana team Purdue
comes in with a 7 and 4 record on the season and there.
Coming off a tremendously uninspiring Victory, but still a
victory over the Northwestern, Wildcats this past weekend 8:43.
This Indiana team finds themselves in kind of an
interesting Crossroads from a stylistic perspective.
As you know, Indiana enters the game as a 10 and a half Point
Underdog which is actually less than I thought it was going to
be. I was honestly expecting it to
be somewhere closer to like 16 or A ten-and-a-half, it is.
And, you know, Indiana themselves is obviously a team
that has a lot of issues. We've talked about them a lot,
but this is not as overwhelming of a pick for Purdue.
As I thought, it might be the way that these seasons were
trending. Purdue, according to fpi, about
a seventy one, and a half percent favorite, which is
sizable, but it's one of the more reasonable spreads that,
we've Seen in terms of fpi for this Indiana team so far on the
season. This Purdue team is have an odd
case. They know they've been able to
string together enough victories, that they're clearly
going to a bowl and and they've got some nice wins on their
resume. They want ad Illinois, a couple
of weeks ago. They want at Maryland, that that
really sticks out a two point Victory.
They want at Minnesota, that's a strange Minnesota team, but you
got to tip your cap to Purdue for picking up the victory there
but Also, add some strange ones, you know, they get essentially
skunked at home against Iowa, losing 2:36.
They lose to Syracuse on the road.
Syracuse did look pretty good earlier, but they've kind of
been exposed over the last few weeks and they struggled.
Even, you know, this was technically a win, but they
struggled at home against Florida, Atlantic in the fourth
week of the season. So very schizophrenic team, this
Purdue team, you know, they they beat or they didn't beat Penn
State, but they played them very Close early on first game of the
season, Ross Aid stadium was very much fired up for that
game, and it just didn't come together at the end for Purdue.
But you watch that game and you thought to yourself, This is a
Purdue team that could really make some noise.
And yet they lost just enough games.
And to the wrong teams, that now, essentially they're staring
down the barrel of really you're just having having a lower tier
Bowl, you know, maybe a mid-tier bowl, if they win this game and
go to 8 & 4, it Like Purdue might have the opportunity to
play for the Big Ten Championship is disgusting is
that sounds, but because they lost to Iowa because Iowa was
able to pick up the victory last week against Wisconsin.
All Iowa has to do at this point is when against Nebraska and
that'll put them in the Big Ten title game and that's that.
So, you know, they lose that game then Purdue winning would
prove Put them in the Big, Ten title game, but this is where
Indiana has the opportunity to just squash that right off the
bat and how they do. That is going to be very
interesting looking at the statistics overall this season,
for this, Purdue team and Indiana, they're, you know, at
least offensive ly, they're not that far apart.
In terms of points per game, Purdue averaging about 28 and a
half points per game. Indiana averaging about 24
points per game. The big difference thus far for
these two teams has been On the defensive side of the ball where
Purdue is letting up about ten and a half fewer points per game
than Indiana is Indiana has been really bad, maybe the worst
Power 5 team on defense. That Colorado certainly has an
argument there but they have been really really bad all
season giving up four hundred and fifty six yards per game,
272 yards through the air and just not a recipe for success.
And, you know, I think when we Dive in next week and kind of do
our final. Post-mortem on the season, will
have to really look very closely at what happened with this
defense and try to give some context because the defense has
been just kind of just bad all the way around and that is shown
kind of at the worst times this season.
Now that said, you know, the defense two of their best three
games thus far have come in the last four weeks of the season.
The Matt Rutgers, the defense actually played quite well,
particularly against the run and against Michigan State after a
very tough first half, where Michigan state scored 24 points
and looked like they were going to do whatever they wanted
Indiana's defense, only allowed seven points, the entire rest of
the game. Now a little bit of luck there,
as Michigan, State should have kicked a field goal at the end
to win it. That got blocked got to give
special teams credit for that, you know, but Indiana after a
lot of experiences. This season of bending and then
breaking or just breaking straight away.
Kind of got back in that second half against Michigan State to
that bend. But don't break style that Tom
Allen was able to use successfully through the first
few years of being at Indiana. And at this point that that's
one of the two big questions for Indiana going into this game.
Can this defense that is filled with players that we were pretty
sure we're very talented. And, you know, we're at Least
you know in the cotton in the conversation for being all
conference you know certainly with Taiwan Mullen and some of
the other members of the secondary That was supposed to
be the strength of this defense. Can they find it within
themselves to play a really Dynamite game and try to shut
this Purdue team down particularly through the air?
You know, Purdue over the course of this season has, has not been
terribly impressive overall. And, you know, you look at What
they've done overall, in terms of output, most of their output
from an offensive perspective has really come through the air.
They're only averaging about 128 yards, a game through the
ground. That's not really what they do.
A lot of the focus has been on Aiden O'Connell.
He's got 20 touchdowns 11 interceptions, 2834 yards so far
on the season. And so you know, when you look
at this Purdue team and you're like well they're certainly
going to try to move it through the air, they've had a couple of
games where that worked He well, and that was against defenses,
that have struggled against the pass.
You know, most notably, at least in Big Ten play against
Nebraska, where they had an excellent game through the air.
And, you know, that's what's been interesting about them.
Is there have been games where they haven't done particularly
well, through the air? So it's not impossible to shut
this Purdue team down, but it's going to take a 60-minute
effort, maybe slightly more. If over time is involved, where
Indiana plays at a level that they have not been able to Ooh
sustained on defense, essentially All Season.
You know, it's it's fascinating to think about but when you go
back and you look through what Indiana has done so far this
year defensively, there's really not a game that you could point
to where you'd say. Wow Indiana's defense played
really well in that one. I guess you could say perhaps
Illinois. But yeah, I'm have gone back and
watched that game a couple of times.
Indiana makes some good individual plays defensively in
that one, but that game really felt a lot like Illinois.
Just Not having it together and we've seen Illinois.
Now in a few games this year just have games where their
offense does not work and you know, feels like that first game
of the year that kind of is what happened with Illinois.
The Rutgers game certainly Rutgers is not good on offense
and worse than Indiana. I would say overall in
conference play. So it's hard to give the defense
a huge amount of credit there and, you know, ultimately you go
beyond that and you got a lot of really, really big scores that
have been racked up 30 points. It's from Western Kentucky, 45
from Cincinnati, 35 from Nebraska 31 from Michigan, 38
from Maryland, 45 from Penn State 56 from Ohio State, and 39
from Michigan State. So, you know, if you're Indiana
you really have to look at this this game against Purdue and you
have to say look defensively just overall we don't have a
chance at winning this game if we can't hold Purdue to let's
say 24 points, maximum. You know, Indiana has shown that
in that game against Michigan State.
If they can get things rolling and they can get contributions
in special teams that they can probably score somewhere in the
neighborhood of 24, to 27 points.
Excuse me, I think that 24 points are probably too much to
some degree. I think you might have to hold
Purdue to like 20 points. If Indiana is really going to
have a chance in this one. But you know a lot of that's
going to depend on what the offense is able to do and that
is going to be an Resting thing. Because Purdue from a defensive
perspective, has certainly been no great shakes this season
either. You look at Purdue defensively
speaking and they're graded out as the 93rd rated defense in the
country. They're rushing defense is 103rd
in the nation which is about what Michigan State's was
actually a bit worse than what Michigan State's was.
It you saw yesterday? You know, they've left and you
should all go read Taylor Layman's bite-sized bison update
from Beginning of this week, he does an excellent job of laying
out, kind of where the weaknesses in Purdue's defense
are. They've given up a lot of
rushing and they've they've just been just very inconsistent over
the course of the season in terms of being able to stop
opponents in various phases of games.
And I think ultimately Indiana's got to look at that and say well
you know, certainly our offense has been bad.
But the flip side of it is we're playing a defense that's pretty
bad and the offense somehow figured out a way to put a bunch
of points up on the board in this last game.
Now, a lot of that was Jane, Lucas not just the kick return
that went for the touchdown, but also the kick return on that
first drive that set up the touchdown that Indiana scored to
lead off the scoring, you know, and you also had an interception
in that game which gave Indiana some good field position.
A lot of that, had contributed In that game.
So it's not just simply a matter of, hey Indiana's offense is
cooking again, but it does appear that Indiana.
And again, this is where I would recommend reading.
What? Taylor wrote.
It look like the Indiana has turned a page in terms of its
offense, and a lot of what we're seeing out of Dexter Williams
being essentially the full-time. Starter at this point is a full
mod conversion of Indiana's offense from a heavily past
based offense to a run based offense.
And it looks like that might actually be working out better
in Indiana's favor because clearly if you've been following
us and listening to the analysis and reading pieces, you know,
that Indiana can't pass block. And one of the big issues that
counter basil lack struggled with throughout the entirety of
the Season. You know, a lot of what Michael
penix and Jack Tuttle dealt with last season and honestly what
knock total out this year as well has been essentially a
non-existent Pass blocking scheme, something that that
honestly makes it almost impossible to throw any kind of
coherent patterns of, you know, and getting the ball out there
in time, it's just not happening for this Indiana team.
And so, to some degree, I mean, this is probably the most
incisive and intelligent thing. We've seen out of the coaching
staff. So far this year, this pivot
over to a running based offense. Now, it worked It's Michigan
State. It almost didn't.
And I think this is where we have to be cautious about, you
know, how much to read into that.
You know, Indiana deserves credit for the Victory.
And I think you have to be excited about the fact that they
figured out a way to win on the road in East Lansing, that's not
something that happens. Traditionally in this series,
the flip side of it is ultimately, the lot of had to go
right outside of Indiana, putting some points up on the
board and on offense, in order to give them a shot at winning
that game. Now, theoretically, it should be
a better situation in Memorial Stadium for the Hoosiers than it
would have been on the road in a freezing, Spartan Stadium.
Indiana also has shown a propensity for not being able to
repeat successful things week after week.
Not just this season, but last season as well.
So, it's hard to know how much of what we saw last week against
Michigan. State can actually carry over,
and that's not just because of the normal executional things.
It's also because Purdue's now got, you know, essentially a
full game and maybe really up to a game and a half of tape view
count, the Ohio State game in of what Indiana, Is doing in their
blocking schemes and what they're trying to do in terms of
their play-calling go, Indiana doesn't really have passed
catchers at this point. They only completed three passes
for that entire game against Michigan State, two of them.
Counted one of them was a two-point conversion.
So it doesn't technically count but it's you know for all
intents and purposes with a completed pass and it's very
rare to watch a team, go through such a huge transformation on
offense, from throwing the ball as much as Indiana was throwing
it with Connor basil, act to essentially Throwing it at all
with texture Williams. You know, one of the things that
makes Dexter Williams really key and again your retailer to get
more on this is he has been really successful running the
ball more so than any other quarterback in the league and
that's something Purdue hasn't really faced.
Will that be enough to allow Indiana time and flexibility and
subterfuge to be able to figure out plays that'll work and take
advantage of a weeks? Spot in Purdue in their Rush
defense. That's the big question mark
that along with how does the defense perform can the defense
keep Purdue Under Wraps can they generate some turnovers and can
you get something out of special teams?
You got to feel really good about where, you know, Charles
Campbell is at as he, you know, take the block aside.
He's been able to craft essentially, a very, very good
season in spite of everything else that's going on.
At kicker James Evans did not have a great punting game.
He will need to have a better game against Purdue and
ultimately look Indiana's. Going to have to try to control
clock control Tempo and try to get an early lead.
This is if Indiana is going to go with this rushing attack,
that's great and it does allow them to get their athletes.
The ball in space, a lot more than they've been able to
through passing. They Don't Really there's no
Camp camper. It doesn't look like there's DJ
Matthews, they Really have a lot of targets anyway, so they're
going to have to deal with Purdue coming in knowing that
Indiana is likely not going to try to take advantage of the
pass. That could be something Indiana
could take advantage of in and of itself.
But ultimately, if Indiana is going to primarily focus on the
run and use that as their approach in this game, it's
going to be really important that they not fall behind by a
couple of scores early. Because even though they did
come back against Michigan State, Chances of that
happening. Two weeks in a row.
I'm not terribly optimistic about.
So this is a really fascinating game.
It's a game where I think a couple of weeks ago, you're
looking down the road and there, looks like there couldn't have
been a wider gap between these two programs that look like
Purdue was in the ascendancy. Especially after that win at
Illinois. And just the way that they
played throughout the course of the Season, they've clearly had
a more successful season than Indiana and Indiana look dead in
the water. And suddenly after that game at
Michigan State, Indiana doesn't look dead in the water anymore.
Like there's as much as we've been critical on this podcast of
not just the lack of effort. But frankly, just the lack of
execution ability on this. On the part of this Indiana's
team, both offense and defense. We suddenly saw this team kind
of Roar back to life in the second half and overtime in a
way that we just didn't see for most of the season.
And so I I'm really fascinated to see how much of that carries
over. You know, can Tom Allen, use his
motivational skills to get this team.
Truly fired up to play against Purdue and what is produced
thought process coming into this game.
How fired up are they? You know, Jeff brohm has a
really good record against Tom Allen thus far in the series
Purdue is not a lot to play for. I mean, there's not a tremendous
amount of difference between being seven and five and being
eight and four. They're very unlikely to go to
the Big Ten. Title game.
And frankly, by the time you get to the fourth quarter, you're
probably going to know what the disposition of that is.
Anyway, it's really going to be fascinating to see how Purdue's
mentality comes into this game and whether Indiana has a full
head of steam. Knowing that essentially, this
is their bowl game. This is going to determine in a
lot of people's eyes. How successful or not successful
this season was and honestly, it buys them as players and
certainly the coaching staff Buys a ton of leeway as bad as
this season has been, if you can rally win two games at the end,
when both rivalry games and beat Purdue in the old Oaken Bucket
game, like that combination would be a complete narrative
changer for a season that right now.
I mean, even with that Michigan State, when has a pretty
negative narrative, all things considered in terms of how you
would evaluate, how the seasons gone, and where everybody's at,
in terms of where this program is moving forward.
So, That's the stuff that's on the line.
It's going to be fascinating to see how it all plays out.
Hopefully, all of you get a chance to watch the game,
whether you're coming down to Bloomington and person or
whether you're going to be watching from home, either way,
3:30 p.m. on, Big Ten Network. It should be a really
fascinating one. That'll wrap it up for us here,
as you know, Indiana, I'm not going to give a prediction on
this. We're too far away.
I it's only Tuesday. I'm recording this.
I'm not ready to give a prediction yet.
We'll see what happens. Good luck to the Hers.
As they take on Purdue in this game, good luck.
To all of you folks on Thanksgiving, for the back home
network and 40 people apparel. This is Crimson cast on Galen
klaviyo. Catch you folks on the flip side
bring back the Bison. So long everybody.