Music and hello, folks. Galen Clavio here and welcome
back to Crimson Cast. It is Sunday, July 27th.
It's been too long. We've had a bit of a hiatus
thanks to vacations and just a little bit of a slow time period
as everything's going on. But we got plenty to talk about
today. We're going to do a shorter IU
football podcast. We'll have more IU football
content coming up later on this week and beyond.
And I just wanted to answer some of you folks's questions and
talk a little bit about what I saw out in Vegas for Big 10
football Media day and lot to talk about.
And we are getting closer and closer. 34 days until kickoff
for IU football and even less than that for the kickoff of
college football in general. So we're going to dive into it
here in just a second. First of all, just a reminder,
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Football content, all right? I promised we would be getting
to your questions and I wanted to go ahead and dive right into
them as there's a lot to go through.
Let me start off. I first I'll be able to say
this, I'm not going to be able to get to all of these
questions. Because there were a ton of
these questions and I appreciate everybody jumping in.
We are going to have multiple shows throughout the course of
this week. And you know, I think it's
important that we we try to break this down into different
areas. So the first thing I wanted to
tackle was some of the non team specific areas is I want to have
Taylor or Scott or some other folks on with me.
I think those things work better as conversation pieces.
But let's start with this question from Christian
Ellerding. Are we thinking Big Noon kickoff
or maybe even college game day for the Illinois game?
So this is an interesting one and I've gotten this question
quite a bit. And this is where I think it's
sometimes interesting when we try to figure out when games are
happening. As many of you know, games
initially will get selected by networks.
And we've walked through how that process goes where there's
essentially a draft that happens, but they don't draft
the whole season. They'll draft kind of week by
week after they get to a certain point, really after you're up
until like week two or three. Now, we're already seeing some
games being selected by networks and that has narrowed down the
options, I think a bit in terms of where this IU Illinois game
is going to be. The IU Illinois game, of course,
a game that everybody's really looking forward to.
We've had like Danny Cannell talk about how this is a game
that could have playoff implications, certainly is going
to have implications as far as the standings in the Big 10.
But when, when's it going to happen during the day?
So this is Week 4. There are some games that have
already been apportioned out or have been selected by networks
during Week 4. And you have to keep in mind,
like there's essentially a top tier list of, you know, the
games that are going to be going on within each conference.
And then you break it down from there and it gets a little bit
less and less important. And that's where games get
shoved down to Big 10 Network, or maybe onto a streaming
service like Peacock. So if you look at the.
Games in the Big 10 that have been selected so far that
weekend, Iowa at Rutgers on Friday, that's the Fox game.
So that's out of the equation at this point.
Then you've got essentially 3 games that have been apportioned
to networks already. You've got Michigan at Nebraska,
which is the 330 game on CBS. You got Purdue, Notre Dame,
which is the 330 game on NBC. And then you got the Apple Cup
between Washington and Washington State, which is 7:30
on CBS. The other four games in the Big
10 for that week that haven't been assigned yet, you have
Michigan State at USC, you've got Maryland at Wisconsin,
you've got Oregon State at Oregon, and you've got Illinois
at Indiana. Now of those four, there's a
couple of different directions that I think you can see this
go. I wouldn't be shocked to see
Illinois, Indiana as the night game because and, and I know
you've got Washington, Washington State, but you got to
keep in mind that's not really a national game.
That is a regional game and it's not even a full Big 10 game,
obviously, because Washington State is still in the PAC 12.
Does that mean that they would schedule Illinois?
Indiana to go up against that, very possibly.
But the other complicating factor here and where Big Noon
might actually be in play is you've got Michigan State, USC.
That's not going to be Big Noon kickoff.
That's at USC. They're not going to do Big Noon
kickoff for a game that would start at 9:00.
They might, they might bump it back a little bit, but the the
actual noon kick itself as opposed to like ESP or Fox being
there. You know, if they were going to
have the the program be a bridge program into the kickoff like
they did earlier on this year with I think it was the Nebraska
game, it'd be more likely that Illinois, Indiana would get that
slot than Michigan State. USCI also wouldn't be surprised
if NBC decided that they wanted to go Michigan State, USC as a
730 game kind of to counter program.
CBS having a West Coast team like Washington, which has a big
following. I don't think Illinois Indiana's
going to be the 330 game again because you've already got
Michigan, Nebraska in that slot. And I think Illinois Indiana's
going to trump whatever people might think is going to be
Maryland, Wisconsin. So I went into this originally
thinking that Indiana might be the 330 game.
Then they moved Michigan, Nebraska to it.
So my guess is at this point it's probably a noon kick for
Illinois, Indiana, but I wouldn't be shocked if it was a
7 or 730 kick. It really just depends on what
NBC decides they want to do in that evening time slot, if
they're even going to have a game there since they've gotten
the the Notre Dame Purdue game earlier on in the day.
So again, I feel like we're not going to know for a little
while, but I wouldn't be surprised if we knew before the
season started. That is going to be a wild
weekend one way or another. I think, you know, from the
perspective of people outside of Bloomington, I know people don't
like night kickoffs because of the long, relatively long drive
to get back home, although it's a lot easier with the
Interstate. I don't really want to melt as
as along with other people in the sun at noon.
I'll do it. I'll be happy to do it.
But I that just seems like such a cool game to be in the
evening. It would, I'm not going to say
be a shame because I'll look, I'll take a national televised
broadcast with two ranked teams. You know, that's that's totally
fine. I just in the back of my head, I
keep thinking that's going to be an evening game.
I think it's really just going to depend on what kind of juice
the networks think Michigan State, USC might have and where
they end up slotting that. So we'll see what happens, but
nothing definitive yet as far as the the time.
And I know even the folks that I've talked to in the television
business have been a little bit uncertain.
And there's even been I was told definitively it was going to be
at one time before and then was recently told, well, no, that's.
Actually not accurate. It's my.
It might change to a different time now.
So. So there you go.
We had some other questions. Some of these are kind of funny
and and yet there's some grains of truth in them and they to
some degree overlap with what I saw out at Big 10 media day.
So in 49 States asks, is it true that this year's Indiana is
Indiana? Which is kind of funny because
this has been a narrative we've seen in some ESPN posts.
It's been some things we've seen in some other companies posts
where everybody's been asking like who is this year's Indiana?
And hilariously, someone that I saw listed said, oh, it's
Illinois. It's not Illinois like Illinois
last year. I think people forget this
Illinois finished ten and three. There were six and three in
conference. They were a good football team
Last year. They finished 16th in the
country to be this year's Indiana.
You could not be coming off A10 win season.
To be this year's Indiana, you have to be coming off like a
three win season, really 3 consecutive 3 or 4 win seasons.
You have to be in a position where.
You come out of absolutely nowhere and you are suddenly a
national player and making or getting close to making the
College Football Playoff. There are not a lot of.
Teams that fit that bill and the ones that do, I mean, if you go
back and look at the standings from last year, who are the
teams that maybe fit that profile?
You know, I would argue Maryland does not fit that profile, even
though they were one and eight in the league last year.
Maryland's been OK the in the years prior to that, they've
been in contention for bowls. They've made a couple of bowls.
They would not be this who's Indiana because they would not
be coming out of absolutely nothing over the last three
years to get to where they would want to get to you.
You look at the Big 12, who are the teams that finished in the
bottom reaches of that conference?
Last year's Oklahoma State was O and 9:00.
They've had too much success to ever qualify as this year's
Indiana. You've got Utah, UCF and Arizona
again. I'm not sure.
Any of those teams would really qualify.
The most hilarious one to me is Florida State, which again,
would not qualify given that they were on the doorstep of a
playoff appearance 2 years ago. But they were one and seven last
year and 2:00 and 10:00 in the ACC.
Or excuse me, two and ten overall, one and seven in the
ACC. So I look at all of that and I
don't even know if there's a good candidate for this year's
Indiana. It's certainly you.
You look across the board and almost every team that would
potentially qualify either had too good of a season last year
like Vanderbilt or Oklahoma or Arkansas.
All of those teams made bowls or they're teams that have just had
too much success to really ever qualify as this year's Indiana.
So I think I do think it's funny that and I appreciate the media
trying to fold Indiana into the national narrative and yet
another way. But realistically, there is no
chance in my mind of a this year's Indiana and the very
unique aspects of what made it such a special season, such a
unique season in Indiana. Football or college football
history? Really not just Indiana.
Let's see, I wanted to jump to another scheduling post and
again, this kind of ties in to what we saw over in Vegas for
this Big 10 football media day. I will say that what's hilarious
and I want to find the the comment that someone left on
this because it would really summed up a lot of the hilarity
that I find in all of this. Buff Komodo asked the following
question. How glorious is it that IU
football now occupies a space in every media members brain rent
free? It is glorious.
It's also hilarious and I think it's really special that for two
years in a row now, IU and Kurt Signetti have come out of Big 10
Football Media Day. With the most people.
Kind of craning their necks, looking at them saying like,
what if you recall last year, Signetti?
Brashley says, you know, it said, you know, gets up on the
desk and, you know, talks about how they, you know, it's, it's
kind of a preview or whatever the language was of them coming
back for the conference title game later on that year.
And they almost did it. If Minnesota knocks off Penn
State. Like they were poised to do.
That prophecy comes true this year.
Signetti goes in and makes all the buzz about talking about the
scheduling, you know, adopting SEC scheduling principles.
Just amazing. And I once again am impressed
with Curt Cignetti's ability to say things in ways that just cut
right through the media divide and get people fired up one way
or another. If you're an IU fan, you're
ready to run through a brick wall for the guy in most cases.
If you're another Big 10 coach. I mean, there were several Big
10 coaches, including Jed Fish, including Ryan Day, including
Lincoln Riley, who said some version of what Kurt Signetti
said. And yes, all of that to some
degree is being coordinated by Tony Petiti in the Big 10
Conference. But it's fun to watch IU, and
Kurt Signetti in particular, become this entity that people
are. Paying attention to at such a
unique level. And even on the podcasts from
the various places out there that we've seen over the course
of the last few days, you know, ever since Signetti went up
there and talked, it's been a talking point that everybody has
had. And so I think it's great that
you've got IU and Kurt Signetti continuing to keep themselves at
the forefront of the conversation.
Now. It requires that you back up the
talk and back up the the appearance in the conversation
with actual results. But they did that last year, and
there's no reason to believe that Indiana won't be able to do
that this year. As well, it does put a little
more pressure on your team, but I think that that's what Kurt
Signetti wants. And I think this is an
interesting lesson for a lot of IU fans who are still trying to
figure out exactly how to navigate being an IU football
fan at a time when IU football is more relevant than it's ever
been nationally. As Signeti has alluded to or
outright said in several different media appearances,
people don't like it when you crash a party that they don't
think that you belong to, is essentially what he said.
And that is how college football has worked historically.
The upper echelons of college football is one of the biggest
versions of Mean Girls that you're going to find in that
it's very exclusionary, it's very catty and there's a a real
resistance to non blue bloods and non established programs not
just knocking on the door, but actually walking into the room
and staying there. This is very much an old boys
club in in a lot of ways and fans and media treat it that
way. And I think Kurt Signeti
understands that, but he also understands that the longer you
can stay in the at a level of relevance within the
conversation nationally. The more people start to accept
that you belong in the conversation.
Now, I don't think Indiana's ever going to actually be fully
embraced unless they do this for 2530 years in a row.
But the idea, the way that IU got reacted to last year in
relation to the College Football Playoff was silly.
And you, you just can't play nice when you're getting reacted
to that way. And I think Signeti understands
that you have to argue for your place and you have to
essentially defend and justify the things that you're doing.
And I thought Signetti did a really good job of predicating
what IU did after they got criticized quite a bit over that
cancelling of the Virginia series.
And they were legitimate reasons why they did that even above and
beyond the SEC scheduling principles thing, you know,
largely the extra revenue from a home game and the fact that that
series got scheduled at a time when Signetti was not yet the
coach. It it is funny that, you know,
Signetti's also gotten blamed for the Louisville series
cancellation, which he wasn't even a part of.
And I'm going to get to something on that that that pit
Hoosier wrote in. But much like we saw Lincoln
Riley get criticized this year for even daring to animate that,
it might not make sense that the Notre Dame game stay on USC
schedule. You got a lot of people who are
approaching their commentary on college sports and I'm not I'm
leaving the fans, the online fans out of this entirely.
But even at the media level, you got a lot of people who are
approaching this from what they think is the best interest of
college football without ever really defining what that means
or acknowledging that what they think might be in the best
interest of college football in their quotes might not actually
be in the best interest of a lot of the teams in the programs
that are participating in college football.
And so I think with Signetti, if IU is going to be in people's
mouths anyway, you might as well twist it so that they are
talking about things on your terms as opposed to talking
about it as if you're just this interloper who's doing dumb
things that are hurting the sport.
None of which is true, but. That is clearly how IU has been
categorized in multiple circles over the course of, oh really,
since November. So I love the fact that IU has
become this weird rally and cry to the point that like Ari
Wasserman from On Three wrote a whole piece about this, focusing
specifically on how the fact that it was Indiana that was
involved in the scheduling situation last year was itself.
A shock, I guess, for lack of a better term.
So bravo to Kurt Zignetti for knowing how to navigate this.
And it's just awesome that Indiana's getting talked about
at this level. And it's awesome that Indiana
went out and backed up what they were doing in terms of winning
11 games last year. And I'm fascinated to see what
they do coming up for this season.
So let's stick on the scheduling thing to start with.
I I alluded to this one earlier, but pit Hoosier asking the
following question. And I think this question is
still even more pertinent now given Lincoln Riley's comments
at Big 10 media Day. But the question was given IU's
controversial scheduling philosophy, I don't know how
controversial it it actually should be.
But given IU's philosophy that resulted in the Louisville and
Virginia gays being bought out, should and will IU keep?
The Notre Dame series in 30 and 31.
So again, we we saw comments about this from Lincoln Riley
because he was asked specifically about that series
and he brought it back again to this idea of scheduling needs to
be consistent across the board. And you know, we don't want this
situation to be there where USC, Notre Dame might hurt USC in
their quest to get into the College Football Playoff.
A lot of people jumped on that and criticized Lincoln Riley in
particular and criticized the Big 10 for I think somebody,
Stewart Mandel referred to it as gaslighting, which is ludicrous.
Here's the thing to keep in mind about scheduling right now.
If the. Reality of college football is
that we're going to focus on a playoff and I think we should,
and this is something we're going to get into a lot more in
depth on football Weather, which is the college football podcast
that I do with Matt Blaska that's also on the back home
network. We're going to talk about this
more in depth on our episode from this weekend.
If the goal is to get into the playoff, I think you have to
have some kind of acknowledgement that the entire
system of scheduling, which has been essentially predicated
around getting to bowl games but not necessarily getting to the
playoff, is not really a great system for a lot of the teams
that have been at the heart of it over the course of time.
And so when you look at an Indiana, as much as they've
gotten criticized for canceling the Louisville series or or
buying their way out of the Virginia series, the reality of
the situation is Indiana, along with many other teams in college
football, and I would put USC in that mix now don't have the
luxury of throwing a game away as a loss potentially if they
want to be in contention for the playoff.
And the idea that those teams should just continue to schedule
that way, regardless of whether or not it's good for them
because it's somehow good for the greater good.
I, I just, I'm not seeing that argument being extended to a lot
of other teams in college football.
You know, why is it that Indiana who if you look at the history
of Indiana, has always over scheduled itself to the point
where it over scheduled itself out of bowl games, out of out of
contention for bowl games. Because instead of just doing
what other teams in the conference or teams in the SEC
were doing and scheduling a very weak non conference.
Indiana historically has always felt like it's had to fill up
its schedule with a lot of good non conference games.
Often times because of what I would argue was a short sighted
focus on ticket sales and not nearly as much of A focus on
building up a program. And this is not a new problem.
This went all the way back to the League Corso era.
Go back and look at some of those non.
Conference League Corso schedules they're playing.
USC in a home and home, they're playing Washington, they're
playing teams that they had no business playing at that point
'cause they weren't that good and they didn't get good, they
didn't get to the Bulls that would have helped them to
establish themselves so to. Round this out and go back to
this Notre Dame series. I think that's part of the the
scenario that has to be evaluated.
If you're Indiana, do you get? Enough out of the Notre Dame
game. In terms of prestige, do you
have a chance at winning those games?
I think by 30 or 31 they will, but is it?
Worth losing that game and then having to play the full 9 game
schedule in the Big 10. You've left yourself no margin
for error. And that this is where I really
push back on what a lot of the national pundits are saying,
where they're like, well, you know, what's the purpose in
playing the game? If it's, if it won't hurt you
one way or the other. And the flip side is what's the
purpose in playing the game? If you significantly increase
the percentage that you're going to get edged out of the playoff
if other teams aren't having to play that type of a game in a
given year, and whether or not we like that or don't like that
philosophically, you have to think about it strategically.
Now for Indiana, the other thing I think is worth noting here is
that ultimately there's a an element to Notre Dame to some
degree being able to coast on being an independent from a
scheduling perspective that I think the conference in general
is looked at and said maybe this isn't something that we want to
be helping them out with as we move forward.
I mean, think about last year. They're caught.
Their schedule overall was not that strong.
At the end of the day, they played a bunch of ACC teams.
None of them really ended up being particularly good.
They won at USC, who didn't end up being particularly good.
They played Purdue, who was real bad.
They played Northern Illinois, who they lost to, and they won
at Texas A&M, who also didn't end up being particularly good.
If you look at the teams that they've been playing lately
versus who they used to play, they're no longer playing
Michigan in a home and home every year.
They used to do that. They're no longer playing
Michigan State. You know, the Purdue series has
been intermittent, and I think there may be some communication
or some conversation happening where it's almost like, you
know, Notre Dame to some degree, getting to pick and choose teams
to play in the Big 10. That's propping them up from a
schedule perspective in a way that perhaps the Big 10 should
not be engaging in because it gives Notre Dame all the
benefits of being able to pick and choose their games without
really having to play a conference schedule that the Big
10 teams or the SEC teams are having to play.
And there's been enough talk about the ACC, and I think
everybody's aware of this. The ACC has just not been
particularly good over the course of the last five or six
years. They've had some really good
teams, you know, Clemson being a great example of that.
But they certainly haven't had the depth in that conference
that the Big 10 of the SEC has had.
And yet those teams are good enough that Notre Dame is
playing that it gives them a big advantage overall because they
played a power conference, it's schedule without actually
playing a power conference schedule.
And they're playing a bunch of teams from what is not really a
true power conference at this point.
If you look at the, the, the widespread within the ACC.
So I I do wonder at some point if Indiana from a conference
perspective looks at that. And says maybe this isn't what
we're going to do, but I could also see that series actually
happening. I think I would love to see it
happen. I'm not.
Advocating for it not happening, but I am trying to take to some
degree kind of the real politic approach of figuring out what is
going to make the most sense. And does the Big 10 as a
conference say we really. Need to have Notre Dame stop.
They need to stop having the best of both worlds.
And every Big 10 team that schedules them into a home and
home essentially helps to prolong their ability to stay
independent, reap all of the financial benefits from that and
not face any of the actual consequences of not being in the
Big 10 or the SEC. So I know some people may not
like that, but that's how I would be looking at it right now
if I was the Big 10. And I think Indiana, as we've
seen, understands that. Wins are still the most
important thing and the idea that you would voluntarily
schedule games that reduce your ability to get the maximum
number of wins when you already have to play a nine game
schedule against a very tough conference slate.
Those are the kinds of things I do think you have to think
about. And as much as that series makes
a lot of sense from a geographical perspective, it
again probably makes less sense for Indiana than it makes for
Notre Dame at this point, given the fact that Indiana is in the
Big 10 and Notre Dame is not. Let's see some other comments
coming up or some questions. So we had a bunch of questions
about overall record and I'm not going to give our overall record
projection at this stage, but Sir Elvis Greenspan asking what
record does IU need to maintain its recruiting momentum?
That that's a good question. We had another similar question
regarding the overall approach to things that we would expect.
Indiana the need to have in terms of this season.
Let's So who's your beer guy asks the following question.
Do you think IU starts out the year ranked and say IU?
Goes 10 and 2 with losses at Penn State and Oregon, do you
think we would find it hard to make the playoff due to residual
push back from last year slash the schedule narrative?
I look at those two questions as kind of similar to each other.
So first of all, what record does Indiana need to maintain
recruiting momentum? I think eight or nine wins at a
minimum. Now you can definitively say
last year was not a. Flash in the pan.
Last year was not a mistake. Last year was not a blip on the
radar. Last year was the new Indiana
and that Indiana is here to stay.
If you look at the comments that recruits have made about Indiana
this cycle, not just the ones that have committed to Indiana,
but the ones that are on the fence, Indiana's in their top 8
or whatever, What you see is a real interesting and gratifying
set of positive comments about Kurt Zignetti and the staff and
about what's going on in Bloomington right now.
If you hear Kurt Zignetti talking about how the recruiting
process went last year, he's talked about how, well, look
what we've done. What we had to do was go in and
promise a bunch of things based upon what we had done at James
Madison. It's a lot different this year
because what you can now do is point to the fact you made the
College Football Playoff. You lost one game in the regular
season in the Big 10. You had eleven wins overall.
Like those things really carry. That gets you in the door and
now you can explain your developmental process where guys
fit, things like that. So I think if you win, I think
even seven wins would probably maintain that.
But 8 or 9 and I would really circle like nine wins is the
sweet spot. You can easily then walk into a
recruits living room and say we told you that we were here to
stay. We told you that last year was
not a fluke, as I'm sure those players have heard from coaching
Staffs at places like Tennessee, like Michigan, like LSU, like
Florida. Now that takes that out of the
equation as far as an argument's concerned.
And now you can say, look, we've we've accomplished just almost
as much as we did last year and we put ourselves in a position
where we are one of the players, You know, what is the what did
Signetti say on CBS last year? The emerging superpower in
college football? You can go into recruits homes
and say that even more definitively now if you've won
eight or nine games. So that's what I would aim for
in this season as a minimum. I think Indiana's ceiling is
higher than that. The more that I've looked with
the schedule and the more that I've evaluated what's going on,
I do think Indiana ceiling is higher than that 88 and a half
win total that I've seen in a bunch of places.
Now, the Hoosier beer guys, question about do we think IU
starts off the year ranked? I do, I think Indiana, I'm going
to guess Indiana's going to start the season ranked 17th in
the AP poll. I think they should probably be
a little bit higher, but I can also see the arguments for them
being in that range. I think they'll probably be
somewhere between 15th and 22nd. In both polls, it's a great
place to start. And as we saw last year,
starting ranked is much better than not because you're in the
conversation from the beginning and going back to the arguments
about scheduling, which we'll talk about here with the last
question that we'll we'll field SEC teams.
So many of them start the season ranked, win against subpar
competition or worse, and then the fact that they were ranked
at the beginning of the year is used as justification in concert
with the wins against easy teams.
Whereas Indiana, as you'll recall, had to really fight to
get up, not just into the rankings, but then eventually up
into that top ten, top 15 range because they started the season
unranked. They just didn't get the benefit
of the doubt from voters. As we also learned last year,
the voting sucks. Like the not just on the coach's
side either. Like, you know, there is so much
provinciality, especially among southern and weirdly Western
writers and people voting in this poll, that when you go
through and breakdown what they are doing week by week in the
voting, there is so much credence being given.
You know, if you wanted to take a very charitable approach,
credence being given to teams that were already in the
rankings. It looks really like the
credence is being given or the benefit of the doubt is being
given to SEC teams regardless of what they're doing, because the
expectation is, oh, those teams are just so much better.
And you can always point to the fact that they started off
ranked as the justification for that.
It's silly, but that seems to be how it works.
But Indiana being ranked to start the season is a big deal.
And as far as the scenario the Hoosier beer guy lays out, which
again was 10 and two with losses at Penn State and at Oregon,
would that would we find it hard for IU to make the playoff due
to residual push back from the schedule narrative and from last
year? This year will be different from
last year unless those teams fall completely off the wagon
that Indiana's got on their schedule currently.
So take the non conference out of the equation for a minute.
The scenario that Hoosier beer guys laying out here would be a
loss at Oregon, who many people think might be the second best
team in the conference, or maybe the best team in the conference.
Penn State, who many people think is the best team in the
conference, losing at both of those teams.
But then by virtue of the proposed record here, winning at
home versus Illinois, who will be ranked, winning at Iowa,
which is going to be a tough game.
And I think Iowa's going to win 8 or 9 games this year like they
almost always do. Winning at home versus UCLA, who
I think will be better. Winning at home versus Michigan
State, who I think will be better.
Winning on the road at Maryland, who I think will be at least a
bowl team this year, That would carry a long way in terms of
getting into the playoff. You're probably not winning, but
well, here's the thing I was going to say, you're probably
not winning the Big 10, seven and two in the conference might
get you into the Big 10 title game this year.
One of the things that I think we got to note as we go into
this upcoming season is that all of these teams that we're
looking at as potentially the best teams in the conference,
all of them have some pretty tough schedules this year.
You know, Indiana got let down quite a bit last year by the
fact that their schedule had Washington and Washington was
not good. You know, they were, they were
OK. They had UCLA, who was supposed
to be good. They were not.
It had Nebraska. Nebraska was not good.
It had Michigan, who Indiana beat.
Michigan should have been better than they were last year.
So there were several games on the schedule.
Maryland's another one, like who was anticipating Maryland was
going to go 4:00 and 8:00 last year.
So Indiana had games on their schedule that should have
yielded a much greater overall strength of schedule and much
greater levels of respect across the country.
But the teams that they played, Michigan State was another one
who should have been better than they were.
It never manifested in those teams actually doing anything.
So assuming the wheels don't fall off Illinois, the wheels
don't fall off Iowa. Assuming Michigan State and UCLA
and Maryland are better. Like, you know, Wisconsin I
think could be decent this year as well.
Those would all be really good wins and those would be wins
that I think would help Indiana to escape the perception that
they had last year, that they had beaten just a bunch of cream
puffs, which was an unfair argument.
But it was an argument that the reality of which was born in the
way that the teams that they had on their schedule performed
elsewhere. And that was not up to par,
unfortunately. What I think is worth noting
though is, and I'll go back to the thing I was talking about
with the conference and whether Indiana will be in contention
for the title this year. 7 and 2 is not that's that's not far off
from what I think might get you into the conference title game
this year. Because if you think about like
Illinois, who everybody's been talking about non-stop Illinois
schedule this year includes at Indiana, USC at home, Ohio State
at home, at Washington, at Wisconsin, plus they've got to
go to Duke, which is a non conference game.
But still, I mean, that's that's five pretty 4/4 really tough
games I would say in the big 10. And the idea that Illinois is
going to sweep all of those I don't really think is plausible.
It's possible, I guess, but I could see Illinois being a
really good team and being seven and two in conference.
You know, if you look at the schedule that Penn State who has
been most people's odds on favorite to win this conference,
they've got Illinois at home. They've got at sorry, hold on a
second. They've let me let me get the
right schedule up here. Penn State does not have
Illinois, I apologize, but they do have Oregon at home.
There we go. They've got to go to Iowa.
They've got to go to Ohio State. They've got to go to Michigan
State. They've got Indiana at home.
That is five really tough games in the conference.
You know that's that's a team that's going to have to play
perfect even to be in position to have one loss going into that
game that they host versus Indiana, Oregon schedule for
this upcoming year. They got to go to Penn State.
They've got Indiana at home. They've got to go to Iowa.
They've got Minnesota at home, they've got USC at home.
They've got to go to Washington in the last game of the year.
Those are some really tough games and even going over to
what Ohio State has to do this year, Ohio State schedule at
Washington, Minnesota at home, at Illinois, Penn State at home,
you know, at Michigan to close the season.
My, my point being, this is a gauntlet type of schedule for a
lot of these teams at the top of the conference.
And the idea that everybody's just going to sail through this
year and, and get an have an undefeated record or have only
one loss that may not be on the cards.
Even Michigan, you know, Michigan in the conference at
Nebraska, at USC, Washington at home, at Michigan State, Ohio
State at home. And that's assuming that they
play well at Northwestern, they play well at Maryland, they play
well at home versus Wisconsin. You know, there's a lot of games
for a true freshman quarterback like Michigan's going to have to
use that are going to be tricky. So my point is simply that AI
think 10 and two with the losses that Hoosier beer guy
highlighted. If they lose at Penn State and
lose at Oregon, but they win those other two games and win
the other games at home, that's a really good year for IU.
And that is, I think, smack dab in playoff contention.
If you finish the year 10 and two, I think you're still right
in it. Does Indiana get the benefit of
the doubt? If the committee's doing their
job and they're being objective with this, I think Indiana will
be right in the conversation just as they were last year.
And if they don't do their job and they let what was talked
about last year affect the way they deliberate IU this year,
then at that point the committee is not doing its job and frankly
needs to be replaced with something else.
Last question from Rick Carter and ties in again, both with
what we heard of Big 10 media Day and also what I've been
talking about here. Schedule wise, how realistic is
Signetti's proposal of having a level of schedule uniformity
between the Big 10 and the SEC? What really intrigues me is his
idea of non conference matchups between Big 10 and SEC schools.
I think it's plausible because of two things.
A, it's more money for everybody.
And that seems to be the driving force whether we like it or not.
I think both Greg Sankey and Tony Petiti realize that they
are the ones in the driver's seat with college football.
And I think they also realize that if we end up moving to this
automatic qualifier model, which I know Greg Sankey has come out
and said he doesn't want, but prior to the SEC meetings this
year, it sounded like they were all like certainly open to it.
And they're probably still are. If you listen to the podcast
with Andy Staples and Ari Wasserman from On Three, they
animated very heavily that it was the coaches in the SEC that
didn't want the automatic qualifier model, that that 44221
model, but that Sankey was actually in favor of it.
And that there's a conspiracy theory that perhaps Patiti's
going out and playing the heavy here and stating, look, we got
to have 9 conference games across the board or else we're
not going to change the model that we've currently got.
What this would do if the SEC went to 9 games, but you had a
guaranteed game that went across the two conferences an A, an SEC
Big 10 challenge basically, which we've seen in basketball.
Well, now you've got a very legitimate locked in model where
you've got the top 2 conferences who make the most money, make
the SE CS, I think making additional money at that point
because I'm assuming ESPN will have to ante up and pay for that
9th conference game. And they should because they'll
make more money off of that than they're currently making.
The SEC gets into alignment with the Big 10 and now we lock in
that additional game. And you could half those games
could go to ESPN and half those games could go to Fox.
And what you create at that point is an actual unified model
that looks a lot like the NFL scheduling model.
And I know a lot of people are like, we don't want college
football to be the NFL and I get that.
But if we're going to have a College Football Playoff, and I
think we need one, and I'll go into those details and, you
know, kind of like the state of college football on football
weather. So be sure to tune in for that
when it gets published. But if you're going to have
that, you can't have apples and oranges or there's not even
apples and oranges. They're both fruits.
You know, you can't you can't have two completely different
approaches to scheduling and then expect a committee to suss
all of it out later. That's that just doesn't work.
So if you think about the way the NFL does their scheduling,
it's very uniform and it's very consistent.
And you play the teams in your division and you also play the
teams in your conference and then you play some games from
out of the conference. But there's a clear formula and
that's what you need in this. Now, does that make it more
difficult on the Big 12 and the ACC?
Yes, it does, but I don't this is where the the problems with
the Big 12 and the ACC are financial in nature.
And at some point the expectation can't be, well,
we're just going to keep everything as the status quo.
And I think what is being talked about with this equal model that
Signetti talked about where you have a an exchange game
essentially, I'd love to see two more teams in the SEC or I'd
love to see both conferences at 20 to make it all even.
I think you could do that with relatively little fuss.
Well, a little fuss in terms of what the of what those
conferences won. There would be big fuss in the
Big 12 in the ACC with that approach.
But, you know, my philosophy on this is essentially you can't
let nostalgia for the past affect what's going on right
now. There were a lot of, you know,
there were a lot of predictions that people would stop watching
college football if it got more professionalized.
And that hasn't happened. And I don't think that we're
anywhere close to that happening.
So now you got to look at the. Formatting and I think as much
as you're hearing. Media members and certain people
in the SEC kicking and screaming about this.
It doesn't make any sense for one of these conferences to play
9 conference games and the other one to play 8.
I do think the SEC is going to eventually have to come around
on this and I honestly think from a financial perspective,
they want to. It's just a matter of making it
worth their while. And that will then lead to these
kinds of opportunities. And it would be interesting
watching these big tenant SEC teams matching up consistently
with each other over the course of of the next cycle of
scheduling. And I think it's a different
version of what fans would be interested in in the 1st place.
And that's I think something that we should be embracing as
opposed to resisting as we move forward with things.
So I appreciate the question, Rick.
It's a good question. And I do believe that it's it's
going to be one of those things that we have to keep an eye on
as we move forward. And it ties back into even the
conversation about the scheduling with Notre Dame that
I was talking about earlier on from that other question.
So a lot of fun things to talk about and a lot of things to
keep in mind as we move forward. We will go ahead and wrap up
this particular episode of Crimson Cast and talk more as we
move forward about IU football. We'll have some answers to your
questions on personnel. We'll have some answers to your
questions on Memorial Stadium. A lot of you asked about that.
And. We'll have, of course, all of
our buddies back to talk about this upcoming season.
I'm Galen Clavio. We'll catch you folks.
On the flip side, stay never daunted.
It's all everybody.