You're listening to the Back Home Network presented by Home
Field Apparel. Welcome back to Crimson Cast.
Galen Clavier joining you right now.
Scott Caulfield will join us later.
I talked to IU football 1st and then IU Basketball second.
We got Taylor Layman from Bite Sized Bison back joining us.
Taylor and I were just reminiscing about how it's been
too long since we were on together and talked football.
So Taylor, great to have you back.
It's an opportune week to do this as the IU Spring Game is
happening either tomorrow if you're listening on Wednesday
night when we're recording this, or today, hopefully not
yesterday. Hopefully you caught us before
then. But Taylor, great to see you
again. How you doing?
I'm good, I'm good. Galen I I'm a little heartbroken
today. Actually, I don't know if you
saw that the they erased the Mad Ants.
Now it's not the Noblesville Boom.
It's that that tears up my 26-O heart so much.
Yeah, that's so that's like Fort Wayne erasure, right?
You know, I mean, you still got the tin caps, I guess, Sure.
And the Dons. But yeah, no, it's that's a
tough one. I I have not seen that news, so
my apologies on behalf of the ownership group.
Yeah, yeah. No, the I, I, I, I've been
joking with some folks about that from back home.
Yeah, it's I. Also realized we're both wearing
some Oval content. Yeah.
You know what, I think we did not talk about this beforehand,
but hey, some days you just got to wear Oval I think is the
answer to that. Sometimes it's the five, yeah.
It is. So before we get started, just a
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I don't know if you saw this Taylor, but really sweet looking
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A pullover is is a pullover part of the 2025 Diamond Classics
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They got the nice almost football esque, I would say the,
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Maybe pick up AT shirt or it's we're almost out of hoodie
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Get a short sleeve, get a cap. You're going to need it while
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So head over to home field apparel.com, follow on socials
as well. They're a great follow there.
All right, before we get to the main part of the pod, just a
quick reminder. We are also on YouTube.
You can watch the podcasts. More and more people are doing
this. We did a live emergency podcast
last night with Assembly Call. Actually it was with X's and
Joe's. We just, it was weird.
You had the Crimson cast host and the X's and Joe's guys.
It was like we were doing it from Assembly Calls living room
without them knowing we were there.
So it was fun though and we had a bunch of people join us live
on video and we've had over 4200 people watch that episode in
less than 24 hours on videos. We covered Lamar Wilkerson's
commitment to IU and we do that all the time on YouTube.
So be sure to head over there, subscribe.
You get notifications whenever we start a podcast or get one
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We've also got Spotify. We've also got apple, but
consider subscribing to us on YouTube and also subscribe to
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bison sub stack. Ours is free.
Taylor's you should just go ahead and subscribe to because
it's a little bit of money for a huge amount of information.
If you want to be informed about IU football, as I know all of
you do, that's the place to go get the info.
So with all that, Taylor, you had a post the other day
previewing the spring game and we wanted to talk a little bit
about the spring game and just everything that's going on this
week. It's it's quite an interesting
time for IU in terms of where they're at.
It's been a pretty quiet spring. Only one major injury, which was
an unfortunate one obviously, as Indiana ends up losing, you know
what looked like one of their premier imports in the portal
and needs to do something to fix that.
Is Tyler Morris out with a knee injury for the entire year?
But the rest of it's been pretty pretty on the down low.
And other than Kurtz Signetti getting real mad one day about a
lack of effort, there hasn't been a whole lot of other
noteworthy news. Which I would argue coming off
of a season like Indiana had is a good thing.
You kind of just want to let this thing simmer on the stove
for a little while, unmolested. Yeah, Yeah.
That that Chris Dignity press conference made me feel like I
was back on my high school football team.
Yeah. But yeah, I was, I was like, OK,
I like this. I like this coming from the
coach, you know, because, I mean, you hear all the time,
like great things from all of these press conferences, which
is understandable. Everybody thinks their team is
the best team in the country right now.
And hearing that honesty from him is, is, you know, not
surprising, but also a bit refreshing in in some regards.
But also, you know, what he was talking about and kind of
related to what you were saying is there's a lot of time between
now and and, you know, the opening week, week 1.
So there's still a lot to learn about this team behind closed
doors. And they're the, you know,
player movement is, is not over. That's going to, you know,
that's kind of speeding up now again with the spring portal.
But yeah, yeah, the the spring was, this seemed to be pretty,
pretty uneventful, which is honestly, yeah, like you said, a
good thing. Like you, you don't most of the
news coming out of a spring camp is, is probably bad news.
So I think you have as little news as possible as good.
If you're not having to publicly announce that you're moving on
from your starting quarterback over an nil dispute, you're
probably done fairly well for yourself in the spring
circumstances. You mentioned the portal, and
this is I, I feel so bad for fans who aren't like sickos like
you and me who have to keep up with all this news because it's
got to be confusing. It's like, wait, we just had the
portal. Why do we have another portal?
Well, part of the issue with this whole situation is, is the
NCAA tries poorly to balance. These are just students.
Therefore, they need to be allowed to move with the
realities that these are really employees that are earning money
for this. In many cases, you have to have
a second portal window and coaches, I don't think hate it
in terms of like it allows them to plug holes that they maybe
weren't able to fill the first time.
You get a a whole spring of evaluating who really should be
on the team and who shouldn't. And it's, it's a short portal
window, but there's going to be, I saw some figure the other day,
they're estimating like $50 million minimum in NIL money is
probably going to exchange hands over this one week of portal
window that's coming up. It's nuts.
But this is an opportunity for Indiana, who's more appealing
now as a destination certainly than they were last year.
And now Kurt Signetti and his staff have had a full 6-8 weeks
to really dig in and evaluate what they've got on this roster.
Yeah, you know, the, the people that you hear complaining about
the portal the most are, are coaches, but they use the portal
to their to their gain as well. You know this, it is concerning
with the spring portal being after spring camp and you see a
lot of programs doing away with their scrimmages, their spring
game scrimmages so that they're not showing other other folks
their their talent. It would potentially open
themselves up to poaching. I'm not.
I'm not sure exactly how much of that goes on, but but I will say
I'd. Also say I don't I hate the idea
that it's called poaching 'cause it's like it's just player
movement like this happens. But anyway, go on please.
Yeah, Yeah. No, totally I I agree.
But, but when I look at what happened after the spring game
last year and some of the departures, obviously there was
still a lot more work to be doing with this roster at this
point last year for Indiana. But the major loss that they
really had last year was Kobe Minor.
He was, he was the the one that left after the spring game,
which was, and at that point they hadn't, they hadn't gotten
DeAngelo Pollens yet. So there was a minute there.
We were like, who is the quarterback 1?
And so, so you know, so there's a lot of movements.
I mean, when you look at the the guys who arrived, and this is
kind of what I'm talking about. I'm not like pointing to cursing
Neti or anything like that, but this is how it can benefit a
program and coaches involved as well.
The guys that arrived were DeAngelo Pons, CJ W, Andrew De
Pape, then Salomon Van Horst, Tyreke Tucker, and then a couple
old deaf guys and Naji Logan and Sidarius Dawes.
Those were big additions for that 20/20/14, especially CJ
West and DeAngelo Pons, of course.
But yeah, so you know, the the player movement, it it benefits
both sides. And then like we like we see
with the Tennessee quarterback, Nico, he you know, he that that
would that I, I don't, I don't know, obviously it was about
money that, but I think it could also be about Tennessee offense.
People are saying it has to be one of the other.
I think it could be both. It could be both.
Yeah. Well, and and and you know, and
again, it's like, was that an upgrade for UCLA at quarterback
from what they had probably is it better for Tennessee that
he's not there anymore? Sure.
You know, these are these are evolving processes is how I
would look at it. And I think especially for a
school like Indiana where there's reasonable amounts of
questioning, like how sustainable was what happened
last year as you move forward, you know, you, you have to trust
the evaluative processes of the coaches because they clearly did
an amazing job of, of both sets of portal additions that they
did last year. But you know, it's, you
mentioned this in, in the bite sized Bison preview of the
spring game. You know, it's interesting
'cause we're starting to see some names pop into the portal
that were supposedly really highly regarded by the previous
coaching staff, stuck around for that first year, and now they're
no longer here. So I think you can you can, you
can take some things from that. And given that you still have a
roster that's kind of part Tom Allen, part Kurt Signetti, James
Madison, part Kurt Signetti Indiana, that's a lot of
different things. And it's better that there be
processes by which you can move players out that no longer
belong or didn't measure up to expectations or didn't develop
and bring in new guys rather than just what we got to keep
those guys on the roster for the next year or two years or three
years or until they decide to transfer there.
This allows for a little more of a mutual settling of where the
roster is and who's on it and and what positions you need to
focus on. It's interesting too, Galen,
because when you look at this, there's a note that I first saw
Zach Osterman make, which was that there are three guys, 3
high school guys left from the 2023 class.
There were only 17 in the, it's kind of a small class in the 1st
place, but you know, 3 left is, is a little jarring.
But then when you look at the scholarship chart, which I, I
maintain a scholarship chart isn't the, the latest BSB is
linked there. There's six sophomores and so so
they are and, and those six sophomores are, you know,
they're some of the some of the guys that they recruited
directly. And when they came in in 2024,
that's that's like Daniel and Duque, Mario and Dino or Elijah
Hardy. Those guys were all guys that
they brought in. And then of course, the the
three ones, Nico Radicich. So, you know, so there's a these
guys, our guys that they clearly felt, you know, fit their
standard and and their system and then they're going to build
up behind them. So this is going to be, I mean,
it might be a reality every season.
It's hard to project where college football is going, but
it seems like this is clear that, you know, they're going to
work their way through the transfer portal like this, build
each each team as it goes, try to find as much longevity as
they can with these guys and then kind of work their way up
to the high school ranks. I think this 2026 class is going
to be a huge part of that process as well.
But yeah, like you were saying, Galen, like, you know, there's
there's some guys that they're pushing out that, you know, had
they were getting some praise from the previous previous
regime and, you know, but I think they're trimming some fat
from the roster to build up muscle in other places.
That's the way I put it in the in BSB.
Yeah, it's, it's I'm, I'm glad that they waited on some of them
because I think you do have to give players a chance to develop
and grow. But if it's not going to work
or, you know, if it's a mismatch in one way or another, I think
we've seen it's best to move on and figure out something else.
And there's plenty of players out there, as we've seen.
You just got to, you got to hit on the right guys and that's
always the big question mark. And that's what makes the spring
game fun, albeit inconclusive in terms of what you're actually
going to see. So I think for the and, you
know, I don't know, there weren't that many people at the
spring game last year. I'm hoping there's going to be
more people at the spring game this year.
I don't know if there will be. It's on a Thursday night.
They moved it from the original date on Saturday.
It's not going to be televised, but I would hope there'd be more
people out, particularly students 'cause you could tell
like student enthusiasm for football this time last year was
at an all time low. It's significantly higher than
that. There's been some promotions to
try to get some students out there, which I like to see.
What is it that people, you've obviously, you've covered spring
games at IU, you've covered spring games at Ohio State.
What should people be looking for when they go to watch this
half of football that's going to be scored oddly and you know,
it's going to really be less of a game and more of a showcase of
where players are at at a moment in time?
Yeah, I think it's hard for people to get a foothold if they
don't know a lot about football strategy, you know, so.
So the way that I always approach when I'm looking at
when I'm looking at offenses, like we've watched the whole
season of of, of Indiana's offense, you know, so you'll be
able to pick up on some differences because there there
is carry over from the previous season, the previous system.
So, but the way that I always look at it, I, I targeted the
tight ends last year. I wanted to see how they used
tight ends because I didn't, I didn't think they used them very
well in in previous seasons. And so that was a big, a big
clue into how this offense is going to be ran in in 24/20/24.
I think the same thing is going to happen in 2025 because the
Titan position is really interesting right now with this
Indiana offense. So watch the Titans because
obviously specifically for this season, but also Titans can show
you a lot about how an offense is ran.
I think last year it was, it was difficult because the, the
running backs looked like world beaters last year, but there
were like hardly any interior defensive lineman in that game.
So it was difficult to know. So when, when you're looking at
like a, like a, a system, you know, when you're, when you're
considering like offensive lineman and running backs
working together within the running game, that might not
always get you the best, the best clue into how that that
unit is going to perform or how that phase the offense will
perform. Because we just don't.
We don't know, you know? Who the what's?
Experimentation and what's not. And so, you know, I, I look at
the Titans on offense and I'm going to be looking at obviously
defensive line rotations and then safeties on defense and
seeing, you know, how they kind of maneuver defensively.
I don't think there'll be too many changes, but the biggest
change I think is probably going to be along the defensive line.
Who plays defensive end. How does you know, how does
Mikhail Kamaro look at stud if if, if he plays much at all?
And then, you know, how do they rotate on that interior
defensive line? But honestly, the spring game is
great for just seeing the guys on the field together, seeing
Fernando Mendoza throw some passes, seeing what the
receivers look like compared to last year.
But I think one of the big things that I'm also looking for
is just an opportunity to see the young guys play because
you're not going to see them on the field in 2025.
So if there are particular young guys that that you like that you
want to watch, you know, you take this opportunity to do so
because they're probably not going to be playing much in
2025. Yeah.
I mean, yeah, I don't know if. I answered your question.
Oh, you did. Look, I think I, I think for a
lot of people, again, we, as we've talked about many times,
there are people in the IU football fan base who understand
what a, a true college football culture is like.
There's many other, the majority of people in the IU fan base
that this is the first offseason I think they've gone into really
psyched up about football and wanting to know.
And so I, I appreciate you breaking it down as far as maybe
some things to keep an eye on. I, I think it's also worth
noting and you did a great job of, of bringing this up in, in
the recent bite sized Bison newsletter.
Don't take too much from performances, particularly at
the skill positions. You mentioned the running backs
look like gangbusters last year and they ended up being very
good, but in a different way than we saw in the spring game.
And everybody was excited about Tave and Jackson and everybody
was a little skeptical about Curtis Rourke.
And wow, that we we saw how that went.
You, you had one guy who, you know, without the injury, well,
you know, might have been, you know, a mid round draft pick and
you had another guy who isn't here anymore.
So there's there's there's just some you don't want to read too
much into anything with this. As you said, it's great to see
guys on the field, but the statistical performances are
probably not going to be anything that you would want to
bet on going into August and September.
No, I remember Lincoln Murph, though, a walk on cornerback had
a had a pretty solid game that, you know, he was, he was on for
some some important reps. I think he ran with the twos at
one point and then we didn't see him at all the regular season.
I remember Alex Rodriguez, the running back.
I can't remember what season it was.
We had a great spring game, you know, several years ago and just
nothing from him. That's just that's just the way
the spring games go. But yeah, I, I do remember
being, you know, I, I knew that it was going to take a minute
for Curtis work and wide receivers to kind of gel and for
that offense to work 'cause everybody just getting into
town, they will see you something a little bit more
advanced now. But in, in, in the end, like it
like this could be an even better passing attack than than
last season. And it could, it could look
worse than it did last year. And in the spring game, there's
just, it's just really hard to tell.
I remember also on top of that, another example is Drew Alar at
Penn State. He has some terrible looking
throws for during their spring game last year.
And people thought Penn State was going to be, you know, not
very good because he couldn't throw the ball.
But then, you know, we saw off our Penn State when he wasn't
exactly, you know, fantastic. But he wasn't bad.
He was, he was good. Yeah.
So just just some things to keep in mind for everybody because
ultimately this it's it's odd because it's like it's a lot of
hype in terms of like, oh, it's the spring game and then it's a
half of football and it's at 8:00 at night and and then it's
over. And then then you're done with
football for a while, except for the Portal editions, which
obviously we'll be tracking. I add one thing, Galen, it's,
it's really hyped also because it's a big recruiting event.
So they they want it to feel hyped.
They want people to be there. I remember last year you were
saying this. I remember last year it was
mostly just like family of the players.
I remember sitting in the stands and I'm like, it's mostly just
like family and friends. But yeah, the it's it's
definitely important to kind of take a lot of these things with
a grain of salt and just kind of enjoy what you're looking at.
There's not a whole lot of analysis you can really do.
Yeah, you know, but but you know, it is some of the
positions you talked about probably not things that you're
going to focus on initially as a a spectator.
I mean, who goes to a game to watch the defensive line
specifically in the rotations? Taylor Lehman is that.
Person, by the way, mentally ill folks like me.
But these are, I always liken it to it's, it's like a prototype
of a car. You're probably going to make
some engineering changes to the car, but you got to make one
first and see what works, what doesn't, what it, what's in
conflict with something else. And this is a nice way to do
that as a, as a fan, you know. And again, you may not have a
carryover personnel wise down the line, especially since
there's probably going to be some transfer portal additions
that could change that. You mentioned tight end being a
good example there. There's been a lot of buzz about
tight ends in the portal. You got the Cal tight end in the
portal. You got a Wisconsin just lost a
tight end to the portal. So you've already got some
pieces that are floating around. But Indiana's certainly going to
be evaluating. This is perhaps an opportunity
for them to get those people in the building, see how things are
done, and be able to make a sale, so to speak, on what they
could do here at Indiana. And then obviously, high school
recruiting still very important. And you're still building from
the ground up with that, like you're still forming those
connections. If you're Kurt Signetti and his
staff, you're, you've only been in the, the job now for what, 16
months, 17 months, whatever it is, you're you're there's a lot
of layering that has to go in with that.
And this is it's why it was what the frustrating thing about Tom
Allen not wanting the spring game, you know, because it's
like that was the regime that couldn't afford to not have a
big recruiting event to bring people in.
And yet they went away from it for reasons that we've
speculated on on the podcast before.
So it's it's a welcome change. And it's nice to see Kurt
Signetti recognizing that and not taking the mat rule
approach. You know, there there's it's not
like, well, I can't be held accountable if they steal my
players. It's like, well, no, we're just
going to go do what we need to do and get what we need out of
it. And then maybe we can add some
additional people to the mix. Yeah, absolutely.
And, and you know, I, I also, I like that, you know, the spring,
the spring games almost seem like a party when, when you're
not. Like, I remember when I was
covering Ohio State and covering their spring game, it felt
almost more like a, like a party than a scrimmage.
And, and it was because they, they, they want those vibes for
the, for the recruits. And now, now you can have
transfers, like they'll probably have transfers visiting for the
spring game. So it's not just high school
recruits. It's also, you know, transfers
to potentially come in the spring.
So so yeah, I think I think there is multifaceted.
It's not just what you see on the field and what the what the
fans see. There's also a lot of things
happening behind closed doors as well.
So there are a lot of things going on that the coaches are
thinking about and, and, and maneuvering.
So it's an exciting time, but we don't see all of it, right?
And, and the transfer portal thing is going to be interesting
because having it on a Thursday, one of the benefits is you're
not going up against a bunch of other people's spring games on
Sunday or Saturday or Sunday. So you could kind of squeeze one
in, perhaps get people here who might not otherwise have been
able to come because they might be being courted by other
schools and they'd rather check those out.
So yeah, it's going to be a lot of fun. 8:00 kick at Memorial
Stadium. I think doors open at 7:00.
I'm going to be over there. I got a press credential for
this one. So I'll be, I'll be up in the
box watching from, from the from that seat.
And I think are you going to be up there too or are you down in
the stands? I'm going to be down in the
stands. I actually prefer to be in the
stands because I can see the players a lot closer.
So that's that. That was really fun last year.
I don't know if I have the same opportunity this year because
there might be more people there, but I was like right,
right up there and watching them.
It was it was, it was a good time.
It was really enlightening to yeah, if you can get as close to
the field as possible, I'd definitely I recommend it.
Well, come see Taylor or me or both of us at the spring game
tomorrow at Memorial Stadium. We'd love to to just say hi.
I'll, I'll, I'll see what I can do.
I'll try to get down to the stands a little bit because I
always enjoy watching from the stands as well for many of the
reasons you just mentioned. But Taylor, thank you for
joining us on the show again, Bite Sized Bison is the
newsletter. Go subscribe right now.
If you would like to be informed about IU football.
It's pretty much the best place to get that.
And we'll look forward to having you on again soon because we got
to talk some basketball at some point as well.
Yeah, yeah. No, I was really excited about
the Lamar Wilkerson edition too. I I would stay on and talk with
you and Scott. But I gotta go.
The man's got places to be. Taylor Layman bite sized bison
buddy. Thanks so much for joining us.
We'll catch you soon. Thanks for having me on.
All right, Taylor hopping off and guess who's joining us?
It's Scott. Hi, Scott.
How you doing man? Yeah, we're doing fine.
You know, I've been. I scheduled myself very poorly
because I do, I have another podcast that I I produce and I'm
a guest on and I did 3 episodes of that before this podcast.
So even by dude, I don't talk to my wife about my other wives.
So you can just leave this. You know, you shouldn't be
talking to me about this. I like how that's where you went
and not wow, Galen's been podcasting for two hours
straight after doing an hour Long live podcast yesterday.
You know, you were just like, I don't want to be jealous.
Yeah, that's exactly, exactly it.
Enjoy the practice tomorrow. It it reminds me of a Zoolander
with is this a school for ants? Because the press box is so far
up, you're going to be looking down and like who who is, is
that Mendoza like, oh, no, that's a wide receiver.
It is if you've not been up in the Memorial Stadium press box.
It is, It's it's up there, man. It's not a great view.
Yeah, it's, it's, it's pretty, it's pretty wild.
But you know, it's one of those where I think it's good to have
multiple perspectives, you know, watching the game and it's it's
the closest you get to coaches film without actually watching
coaches film is how I look at it.
So. Totally true.
And I will just say for the spring game, you, you, I heard
you listen to the end of that. It's so awesome to be excited
about a spring game at IU football.
I mean, this is one of the few times I can remember having this
and we haven't had a spring game for years.
But just the the excitement that I feel talking to people, it's
like, wow, I actually kind of want to watch the spring game.
I can't remember a time I've been I've been like that.
See, we're just gradually changing hearts and minds here.
I think that's important. So I'm glad we've gotten you on
the bandwagon. It's great.
So I'm there, but we we're going to chat some basketball.
Obviously, big news yesterday, which we covered on the
Emergency Pod with Mike Weemuth and Bob Motz.
Lamar Wilkerson from Sam Houston State has announced he's coming
to IU 65 shooting guard, one of the best shooters in the portal
and really, I think kind of put some people's minds at ease,
including yours. You had texted me earlier in the
day complaining and joking about how a lack of players on the
roster. Only what, 4 hours later to have
the announcement coming that Wilkerson would would be here.
I gave you credit for essentially.
You know, Jedi mind tricking the recruiting process into reality,
But we haven't had a chance to hear your thoughts on this yet,
so please take the floor. Yeah, no, my, my text was like,
I, I, but a lot of caveats, like I'm not freaking out.
I'm not, I'm scared. But like, it would be nice to
get some players on the roster. I was thinking more about it and
I listened to the, the, the emergency pod, you know, I, I
think I'll speak for those. And again, I was not freaking
out, but for for those who have been concerned, I, I think it
does come from a place where we've had eight years and then a
hyper amount of four years where, you know, up to this
point, we've had no real information about recruiting
coming out with this groups thus far.
And we have up, you know what, 4 players on the roster as of
yesterday. I think we have 5 now.
But you know, there there's a long history of eight years of
not a lot of recruiting success and then four years of a lot of
stories about, hey, this guy's not recruiting or this guy, this
coach doesn't know the name or this coach is on vacation during
recruiting time. And so to then suddenly just be
told, hey, have faith in the process, it's going to be fine
and then have no news. You know, eight years tells me
like I'm a little bit concerned when I don't hear anything
because the the previous regimes have been nothing's happening
and nothing happening meant nothing was really happening.
In this case, it's really nice to know that nothing is
happening, but actually a lot of things are happening like work
is being done when I'm going to sleep.
I know that my IU basketball coach is still working and
getting on planes to go visit recruits and doing the things
that a functional basketball coach should be doing.
So all I say is I think people have the right to be a little
concerned as days kept on ticking and nothing was
happening. I understand it's, it's a new
regime. We know that.
But it's like 8 years of, you know, stories like that.
I think we're we're, people have been in that spot.
Yeah. I mean, we talked about this a
bit on the podcast yesterday. And one of the things that if
you've been following closely the goings on around the
program, most of the leaks, pretty much all of the leaks are
gone. And, and that it was a
purposeful choice, it appears by the athletic department to reset
the relationship between the basketball program and the
media, the basketball program and the fan base.
Because this was I, I believe this when I said it yesterday, I
believe it today. I mean, I think those things
really hurt the perception of IU basketball.
The fact that you'd hear about recruits four or five days
before they got here and you'd hear about this guy didn't do
this or this guy didn't do that, or you'd hear about what we
could have offered Aaron Henry, but we got Demizi Anderson
instead because he was, I mean, it's stuff like that where it's
I, I, I think a lot of the information that IU fans online,
IU fans have gotten used to was not information that should have
been provided, but it was information that was being
leaked. And so it is refreshing to me at
least, that IU seems to have cinched that up now.
I certainly can understand the perspective that some folks have
in the fan base about, well, gosh, if we're not hearing
anything, nothing must be happening, why aren't they doing
XY and Z? And I do think that the
Wilkerson commitment gives a lot of cover for the idea that
people were starting to form, which was that, well, we're not
going to have a roster or we're going to striking out left and
right. You know, I've tried to explain
this on the podcast. We've talked about it a little
bit. The last show that we did.
These things are neither linear nor do they happen all at once.
And most of the pressure early on to sign deals was based upon
the the, the the house settlement and whether that was
going to go into effect. It hasn't, it's not going to in
the next couple of weeks either. So that extended everybody's
timeline, but it's also one of those where you do, I think have
to have some evidence in terms of players signing and like this
is going to be the roster before people really start to get
comfortable with things. So I understand the skepticism,
but I do think, again, like my my recommendation to fans, if
they're feeling as you were feeling, is you can't carry the
same level of skepticism and cynicism into the new regime
that dominated the old. And I know that's easier said
than done, but you really do have to almost like be like,
well, we're going to, we're starting fresh.
And I have to assume that the coaches know what they're doing
until I see incontrovertible evidence to the contrary.
And. Certainly, I don't think we're
anywhere close to that. No, I agree.
And I personally wasn't feeling that way.
I was kind of speaking for those people and kind of joking about
it. But I will say that this signing
it, it does put my mind that he's like, all right, if we
don't hear anything for another week, I, I now know that we have
a real grinder there. And, and we've seen it by, you
know, you, you mentioned this, the the field of 68 interview.
The thing that that stood out to me was the quote of, you know,
oh, Devries flew back out to see me again to kind of basically
close the commitment, which was like, wow, I don't think.
And I guess that was my point. Like, I don't feel like that's
been done in eight years. Well and so well, hold on, let
me. I can't believe I'm going to do
this, but I, I will say clearly that him saying that was, as I
think I described it was catnip to IU fans yesterday.
I don't think that you can assume that that never happened.
And I think part of the problem, and again, this goes back to the
leaks thing is the there was there were clearly some mistakes
made. There were clearly some, some
poor judgement in terms of, of things that were done.
I don't think we can assume that nothing was ever done because
clearly Indiana was still bringing in talented players.
They were still doing the, you know, whether it was Archie
Miller or whether it was Mike Woodson.
It's more like either the system didn't work or the core
philosophy behind which the program was was designed around
was just inadequate to the current environment of college
basketball. So I guess that's the one thing
I would say it's like, I think it's easy.
And I've, I've, I've been as guilty of it as anyone.
It's easy to be like, well, now things aren't great.
And it's kind of like that scene from Hoosiers, you know, where
Jimmy Chitwood walks in to the church.
You know, it says, you know, I think it's time for me to start
playing basketball. And, you know, George is up
there saying, I told you as soon as he got rid of him, pointing
at Norman Dale. And then, of course, the next
thing, next line happens. You're like, oh, there's always
more than meets the eye on these things.
But regardless of how broadly applicable the arguments were
that Woodson wasn't recruiting with vigor or, or that Archie
Miller was making the wrong decisions and certain things or,
or, you know, or what not, just showing Darren Devries being
able to to have that happen and having the player come out and
say that as being a major factor is, is such a nice change of
pace. And it does feel like there's a
little bit of of healing happening already with IU fans
if they've seen that aspect of this story.
The other thing that I that that's been calming to me
through this is and, and part of it just has to be, you have to
have faith in the new regime. And it's just, you know, you do
like if you're a fan, you can't immediately be like, all right,
well, we haven't gotten recruits like this guy sucks.
You have to have faith and it doesn't always work out like
Signetti, but you have to have faith in it.
Will, you know, But you, it does feel like, you know, Devries is
putting together A-Team and you mentioned like, you know,
shopping at Whole Foods on the last pod, I think was a really
good analogy. I, I, you know, that feels like
a very good way. And it feels like that's going
to take some time and like you're, you're being very
selective of who you're picking. Whereas, you know, the last two
years under Woodson, it just, it did feel like, Hey, let's just
who's the biggest names, who's the biggest bag we can throw
out? Like, let's go get that.
You felt that way. I felt that way a lot under
Crean. When it's like, Hey, the top 20
recruits we've offered all of them.
It's like, are you think they are they all good fits for our
system? Like this can't be the way that
it works. And it does feel like it's the.
Reason being, very selective girls in my high school class
out on a date. Yeah, it's, it's like the hey,
you know, I mean that and that guy normally is kind of
successful. That's not how you build a
basketball team. Just hey, there's everybody who
said yes, welcome guys. What are we going to play today?
So I, I do think that, you know, there's a it does feel like he's
being selective and I do have faith that he's building the
team that's going to be there. So I'm I'm excited.
I also, you know, I'm hitting on some of the things you guys
talked about, but I do think the other piece that I absolutely
love here is you got this guy from Kentucky, you know, and
it's somebody that Kentucky was actively recruiting.
It wasn't just a Kentucky throughout one of, you know, 12.
Like it's like they took that kid to the Preakness.
Kentucky fans were all pissed because like, we, we were going
for this and I was talking to somebody today.
Not the Preakness. If they flew him to Baltimore,
no wonder he committed to Indiana.
Fairpoint in a horse race. But the thing that I was talking
to some friends about today that kind of it's like, Oh yeah, and
and we're playing Kentucky this year.
Like this is great. Like let's get it going.
Like this is a great little poll from Kentucky as well that I
absolutely love. And it's like now we're going to
play them. We got some hatred, like let's
go. I mean, we'll probably still
lose and rough, but who knows. Well, they just set the date for
that. They didn't know if you saw it,
but they they originally scheduled the date for the Rupp,
the Indiana game and Rupp for the 20th of December, which is
going to be the first. They moved it.
Now it's the 13th of December, which is great because after
Indiana wins the Big 10 title in football up in Lucas Oil on
December 6th, the same day they're playing Louisville at
game bridge. Then the next week they can go
and beat Kentucky and Rupp prior to their first round game.
Actually, no, they won't even have a first round game in the
College Playoffs because they'll have a bye.
So actually we'll have a two week break after that Kentucky
game to get ready for that that next College Football Playoff
game. So am I.
Am I handing off the fever dream torch to you?
Is this Peyland's? Fever dream as as as as one of
my close friends would note I'm I'm big into manifesting at this
point, we're going to we're just manifesting all of this
happening, you know right in a row so that that would all be
all yes, I will take all of it here we go yes.
Give that to me in a syringe. No, this, you know, I, I will go
back to this. Does it?
It's kind of that idea of like now I, I do know that the, the
coaches are, and I always believed they were working, but
it's like now you're starting to see some of the results and it,
it's going to take some time and you know, they're going to pick
and choose. But I, I like the team that it
looks like Devries is building right now.
You know, you, you guys mentioned how this was, you
know, all the schools that this got you, all this other schools
going for this guy was, was SEC schools.
And it is interesting, you know, you talked about that, you kind
of talked about around this in a couple other areas.
And we see it with, you know, how dominant the SEC has been
and how unlike Big 10 teams, the SEC teams look, you still look
around the Big 10 and like, Purdue's going to be good, but
they're going to be a traditional Purdue team.
You know, Michigan State is going to be good.
They're going to be traditional. You know, there there's
something cool about like, hey, let's let's go get all the SEC
guys like, let's do what Auburn's doing and let's do it
here because it doesn't seem like a lot of other Big 10 teams
are either trying or have the resources to replicate it.
So, you know, this is something you taught me years ago.
It was in the Korean recruiting, you know, we would get guys and
you're always like, look who we're going up against because
that that's more of a barometer than what their ranking is or
what they you know, how many stars they were.
It's like, oh, guy's a four-star, but like he was being
recruited by Belmont. But the something doesn't jive
here. You know, this is a guy who was,
you know, Wilkerson was recruited by Kentucky, Auburn,
and those are the three and us Ole Miss.
Thank you. Thank you, Ole Miss Ole Miss,
but all SEC schools. Well, and it's funny 'cause my
the original process of evaluating the offers as the
barometer of the player actually came from watching IU football
for so many years. When you're, you know, you're,
you're seeing like IU. Yeah, they're not recruiting the
same athletes that Michigan and Ohio State are recruiting, but
they're also not recruiting the same athletes that Illinois and
Michigan State are. They're recruiting against Akron
or they're recruiting against Toledo or or Western Michigan or
Miami of Ohio. And you're just like losing, by
the way. And, and yeah, in many cases
losing. And you're just kind of like,
there's something not right here.
And so, yeah, with basketball, I mean, look, we've talked a lot
over the course of the history of this podcast about the
fundamental issues that Big 10 teams have had because they have
not been attracting the types of athletes that really make
differences at the. You know, the in NCAA Tournament
time, in many cases, because you're having to recruit a
different type of player to succeed in the Big 10.
And to some degree, you almost have to break that cycle of
dependency and say we are going to run a system that is focused
around something other than power and brute force, and we
have to focus it on something that's based more on athleticism
and skill. Well, then you got to go out and
try to get those players. Yeah.
And we'll see if it works out. But as we saw with Michigan, you
know, Michigan was able to be a successful program in the Big 10
under John Beeline while running a a diametrically opposite
system for what most of the teams in the conference did, one
that was predicated on offense and predicated on shooting.
And yeah, they didn't always win the Big 10 title, but they made
two national championship games. So I do think that there is
value in that. And I think we are probably due
at some point for a paradigm shift in the conference.
And you can't help but look at the SEC and say they have some
top like top, they are top loaded as a conference, but they
have a lot of athletic skill throughout the course of that
conference. That's what you really have to
try to do. So yeah, I'm with you on that
100%. And I think, you know, it is yet
to be determined whether you can make a roster up almost entirely
of players that are coming in from 2nd and 3rd tier
conferences. So that's where the I could see
a little bit of trepidation or a little bit of concern if you
were a fan and you're like, I'm not going to get too excited
about this. I want to wait because it's
like, well, OK, it's a guy from Sam Houston State.
It's a guy from Davidson, you know, hypothetically, a guy from
Troy, a guy from Idaho, a guy from North Florida.
Like why aren't we pulling players in from power conference
teams? You know, why aren't you going
all after the, the guy from LSU or the guy from Maryland?
And we talked about this a little bit on the emergency pod
yesterday. Like some of it is budget where
even if you got a ton of money, you, you've got to be judicious
with how you spend it because you want to get good depth
players. You know, there's an interesting
analysis that I will not read directly off of because it came
from a, a, a subscription site. But the summation of a player,
for instance, that just got projected to go to IU.
This guy, the guy from North Florida who was visiting today
is, is now our projection to go to you will wait until it's
official before we go in depth on him.
But the idea is like this isn't an elite player, but it's a good
player. And that's what Indiana needs.
They need good players like 1. Like you want to have one or two
guys who you would classify as a lead who or who can grow into
that elite role. But you where Indiana has often
struggled is that they haven't had even players that would
classify as good in spots 789 or even 6789, sometimes even into
the starting line up to some degree.
And so it's a different method of roster construction.
And I think it's got as good of a chance as any, but you're
still kind of adding to nothing. The nothing will start to build
into something and then we'll see what we've got.
But it is an interesting thing to kind of watch the process of
go through because it is very different and hard to get your
head wrapped around as an IU fan.
Because you're referencing essentially a blank roster page
to start with. And you can't really see how all
the pieces will fit together. Nor have you seen the system
that they're being plugged into being run at Indiana in any
recent memory. No, it's all sand.
You're you're you're building question marks on question
marks. The things.
The other thing that I've been thinking about, you've talked a
lot about, you know, resource allocation or the budget.
But one other way to that I was thinking about this to look at
this is there is resource allocation based on the team.
You know, there's let's just pick a number.
Let's say IU has 10 million even number $10 million to spend on
NIL this season. You can't give 10 million to one
player and then have nothing for everybody else.
You know that you have to have kind of a salary cap like that.
Again, nobody wants to talk like not professional, but it is the
the other piece that I will say, and I'm being kind of very
overarching on this, if you'll forgive me for not having a
perfect analogy, but you know, the, the Pacers have to do the
same thing that the difference is they can agree to pay
Halliburton 35,000,000 a year because they know they're going
to make 140 million from TV revenue every year the next 5 or
6 years. Like there is a steady stream of
money coming in. The other piece of this that is
also kind of sand and a question mark is the money that IU has to
spend year over year. It's not like it's based on a
fine an amount, it's a finite number that can change in that.
And what I mean by this is the last two years, again, this is
kind of a generalization, but the last two years Indiana kind
of went after big name, big target spends.
You'll go get Khalil Ware, don't make the tournament.
You pay him, you know, probably a hefty sum, you go get Omar
Barlow, don't make the tournament.
At some point you can't keep going to that same donor, like,
hey, I need another $5,000,000 to go get a player.
At some point they're going to say, hey, you got to do
something different or, you know, or that donors like I'm
done. You go to another donor, like at
some point you run out of donors.
Like the NBA isn't going to run out of money.
Like they're going to continue to get TV contracts.
They know for the next 10 years they're going to fund.
And so I do think a change of Strat.
So I do think there's also resource allocation where IU has
to be understanding that you can't keep pissing or taking
donors money and having no results.
And so the idea of instead of maybe going after one or two
huge names, like huge splashes in the portal, let's build a lot
of smaller players and maybe this will work better.
You know, that could also keep the the war chest going because
I think that's another piece of the allocation of resources is
that it's not just an unlimited supply of money that comes in.
At some point donors are going to say, I'm kind of tired of
this. Like I, I don't want to keep
doing, you know, big one time spends for players.
So I both agree with your premise and disagree a little
bit. I, I think you're right.
I mean, I think just constantly taking swings at big players or
trying to get the number one or #2 player in the portal.
I I mean, there's nothing inherently wrong with getting
the number one or #2 player in the portal, just like there's
nothing inherently wrong with getting like a top five recruit,
our top 10 recruit, Romeo Lankford, for instance.
But if you don't have a system in place that allows you to
maximize the talents of that player in the context of the
accomplishments of the team, then it's wasted money to some
degree. And that's where I think donors
get upset. I think it's why Mike Woodson's
no longer the head coach here. Just same as same with Archie
Miller, where it's like it, I mean Archie Miller in a
three-year span, he got Romeo Langford, who I forget what his
ranking was, but he was I think a top 15, top 10 recruit and he
got Trace Jackson Davis, who while not ranked quite as high,
was a generation of player with Indiana, made the tournament 0
times and got fired. Not because he got those guys,
but because he a, didn't surround them with the right
personnel and B, didn't have a system that they worked in,
especially offensively. Mike Woodson basically had a
different version of the same problem where he he, he, you
know, he did a lot to maximize what Trace Jackson Davis could
do on the floor. He got Khalil Ware, he got Omar
Barlow, he got Miles Rice, who was a pretty hot commodity in
the portal last year. It didn't matter, you know, like
the, the, those, those signings were empty because as we and I
think your NBA analogy kind of works here in a different way
than you intended. The number of NBA teams who have
gone out and splashed the cash on a big free agent signing and
then put nothing around them and have gotten locked into horrific
contracts. This is the Bradley Beal
phenomenon, you know, and we've seen it dozens of times in the
NBA over the last 20 years. You know, Mike Woodson, I think
his philosophy was I need a star in the post because that's where
my offense is predicated around. That didn't work in college
because that's not how the college game works at the NBA
level. It's like, well, we need a star.
And half the time the star is needed, not necessarily even
just for their play, but we got to sell jerseys.
We got to get, we got to sell tickets.
We got to get people in the arena.
It's what makes the Luka Doncic trade such a bizarreity.
I like that word. A bizarre oddity is that is that
combining those two, I. Like that minting vocabulary
here on if you don't have a coherent vision and philosophy
as an organization, it doesn't matter how much money you spend,
your roster construction is going to suck.
I mean, this was the problem with the Pacers, you know, post
what, 2008, you know, for about 3 years until they were like,
oh, I know what we're going to do.
We're going to settle on this collection of players and that's
going to put us in contention to be, you know, maybe going to the
NBA Finals. And they were in contention.
They just had very bad timing luck.
But it doesn't mean the philosophy itself was wrong.
Whereas there's plenty of teams I could point to, they didn't
build intelligently like the New York Knicks for many years and
they paid the price over and over again and seemingly never
learned their lesson. And that's where.
And Mike Woodson. Well, but he wasn't picking the
players. I know, I know I'm just but, but
if it is, that is an interesting tie.
So I I look at it from the perspective of the college
level. It is interesting because the
the other complication is that the in the pros, there are
limits on what you can spend on players, There are limits on how
much you can spend. You can go over those if you
really want to get into the luxury tax.
They don't really exist at the college game level.
Your limitations are what are your resources coming from your
donors? What, what is your revenue share
allocation going to be with your athletic department?
And then from there, how good is your talent evaluation?
How good is your your system that you're plugging players
into and what is the end goal with everything?
And this is where I think the roster construction for this IU
roster for next year is going to be fascinating because they're
going after right now like, you know, Wilkerson's going to have
one year left, right? They're.
Debris, seniors, they're going. After Debris is going to have
one year left, you know, if Luke Goody comes back, he'll have one
year left. And look, that's that's a
choice. Now, you could try to get some
younger players in the portal. But I think the idea here is
kind of twofold. And again, I could be wrong.
This is just me trying to evaluate from a distance since
I'm clearly not in the meetings. I was not on the plane with
Darren Devries going to visit Lamar Wilkerson.
But I look at it and I say, OK, Indiana clearly needs to have
some initial success. And there's a couple of reasons
for that. A, they need to win the fans
back. If you were in Assembly Hall the
last couple of years, you recognized a real growing
problem that has not really been publicly identified, which is
that the connection between the program and the and especially
the students. But I think a lot of younger
fans, fans under the age of 45, it's not there.
It it like it's, it's just not there.
And you can look at the empty seats in the balcony.
You can look at the the the rampant booing in the Illinois
game. You can look at the kind of
unsettled nature of some of the home games down the stretch,
even games that Indiana won. And you can say to yourself,
there has to be some success, something for people to latch
onto. And you're going to have a
better shot at that if you've got a more veteran team,
especially a team of hungry guys who are coming together in a
system that's going to put them in a position where they can be
maximally successful. So I think part of it, but I
also think because of the portal, you have to make
yourself an attractive landing spot.
The fact that Debris with with no tape of him in Indiana and
one year at West Virginia that did not result in a tournament
bid was able to come in and convince the second best shooter
hypothetically in the portal from three to come to Indiana.
As opposed to going to Kentucky, who you know was a top 15 team
for part of the year or going to Auburn who was in the final
Four. Instead, they're coming to
Indiana. Like that to me says, all right,
there's already a good sales pitch here.
There's already a pitch that is appealing to to players like
that, but that's only going to last for so long.
You're going to have to show results in this first year to
convince the next wave of players that you're bringing in,
whether that's recruits from high school or whether that's
portal players. That Indiana is a place you want
to go not just because of NIL, but because you can achieve your
goals as a basketball player. Whether that is I want to go to
the pros, whether that's I want to lead A-Team to the Final
Four. That's why I think there's this
bias towards older players. And it's also like, unless
you've got a dynamite player who you're going to have for a
couple years, what's the point in bringing a developmental
piece because you might develop them for somebody else.
Yeah, no, I agree. What I also think part of the
portal is just most of the guys like Wilkerson played like JUCO,
JUCO and then Sam Houston, like a lot of guys in the portal have
that story where they've they've gone up one or two levels.
You just you do that, you're going to be a junior or senior.
There's not a lot of sophomores in the portal that are that are
of note. I guess Khalil Ware was No, I I
agree with all of that. And I think this also, you know,
this I I think it's smart. I mean, obviously early success
isn't bad. Like no, no coaches like, you
know what, I doubt arts like we're going to lose the Indiana
State, like that'll show them, that'll show who's boss.
You know, I think all coaches are trying to do that.
But I do think, you know, that this is it's a smart approach.
I agree with you. It also gives you time to kind
of build your ground game in the recruiting and say, all right,
now we can build, you know, build that slight pipeline in
there. I would also throw this out
there. I was kind of thinking as you
were talking about this and forgive me if I'm just
completely missing on somebody, but, you know, different eras
with Archie and Woodson, cuz we're just in a different era
now. I, I don't remember Woodson or
Archie having a really killer recruiting offseason before
their first season. Now I know it's totally
different. Like neither of them had the
portal. So it's a different scenario.
But I, you know, we're, we're talking about, you know, Archie
getting Romeo and then Trace. That was after he had success on
the court like you're talking about, you know, Woodson, he did
his work in the portal. The portal wasn't there his
first year. I'm aware of that.
But his his work was done, you know, with Khalil Ware and Balo
after he had tape to show like, hey, I'm a post guy, I'm going
to do this in the post. It's just more to highlight your
point. There's no tape of debris in
Indiana and he's still having this success.
We haven't seen that. You know what the other two
coaches had it based on the tape that they had.
Again, it's not a great comp because neither Woodson or
Archie had this kind of portal opening.
You know, the first year they started, but just making note of
that. I don't know if I totally agree
in as much as like so you think about like when Archie came in,
there was a class that was that was brought in there, the 2017
class, which was Race Thompson, Justin Smith, Clifton Moore and
Al Durham. And, and that there had to be
some, I believe, you know, that was that was, I always look at
the first two classes as something worth indicating or,
you know, like kind of reading into.
And I think people forget like the the first full class that I
would attribute as far as like Archie Miller being at IU, that
class according to the recruiting rankings, had the,
you know, I had five players in the top 150.
It had Romeo Lankford, Jerome Hunter, Demise Anderson, Rob
Phenisee and Jake Forrester. And that was a group that people
were pretty excited about. And all I'm saying is that that
there was tape of Archie coaching at IU at that point
when he signed Romeo. OK, I'll give you that.
It it. But yeah, you're right.
The paradigm has changed quite a bit, You know, and and I think
ultimately it's almost and that was but I think it's worth
noting. It's like a different sport to
some degree from that perspective.
Like how, how do we interpret the the reality of the situation
within the confines of like, well, we're, you know, not only
are we not focused as much on high school recruiting as the
end all be all like the only place to be, but in some cases,
especially like this. If if we were, if we were truly
looking at 2017 in 2025, you'd be starting with a brand new
roster. This would almost be 2008, 2009.
First year again, I'm just a bunch of.
Freshmen, yeah. So it's, it's a really
interesting thing and, and look, you don't, again, you don't know
how it's going to play out because it, it could not work.
It could work really well. You know, what I told people at
the end of the podcast yesterday was if you're skeptical, I get
it. But maybe don't automatically
leap to skepticism as the primary method by which you're
going to interpret all of this. Maybe instead think about it
from the perspective of, hey, I'm I'm excited that the fact
that Indiana's starting to pull in players, I can start to see
if I look at the roster, how all these pieces might fit together.
If I go back and watch tape of what I know Devries's offense
and defensive done at his previous two stops, I can kind
of get a sense of what it might look like in Indiana uniform.
Like, lean into those things. As much as we'd like to look at
and react to and live within the emotional and mental confines of
IU basketball over the last 8 to 9 seasons, the reality is, and
this goes back to the leaks thing that we talked about when
you jumped on the podcast, a bunch has changed in this
offseason. And I mean, you know, you've got
a, you're going to have a brand new strength and conditioning
coach. You're going to have a brand new
trainer. You know, a guy who's been there
for what, 45 years is no longer going to be there.
You're, you've got brand new assistants, You got a brand new
head coach. You've going to have like all of
these changes that have taken place.
This is essentially IU basketball molting and and re
emerging with a new skin. And yes, you still got the the
the red and white uniforms and you still got the candy stripes.
But realistically speaking, it's a brand new program.
And so I would just caution people about taking the pain and
the frustration of the previous eight or nine years out on what
you're seeing right now when it's clearly the beginning of a
process as opposed to being the process.
I agree that the positive way that I look at it is when you
look at football, you know, nobody right now is saying, I
don't know about Signetti and the guys he's bringing in.
Like, I mean, everyone's like you trust the process.
Like there's nobody who's like, I don't know if Signetti knows.
Did he get the right guys in the portal like his Mendoza, really
the quarterback he wants? Like nobody's saying that
Signetti has proved he has a system that works that we trust
in the process. Does that mean we're going to
the College Football Playoff? I mean, in your favorite dream
now, Yes, we're we're doing that.
But on our our great weekend of IU, you know, triumphs, but you
know, does that mean we're going to be when the title don't know,
but I think we'll be on the right path doing that.
The the positive thing that I look at is going back to Devries
did all of this last year in West Virginia.
And the question is, you know, how how will he do?
You know, he did the same thing. He built a roster from literal
zero to 100, you know, a full roster.
He West Virginia was able to field the team like they they
had enough players. They played in Atlantis like
they were fine. Devries has already done this
once. The question always is, how is
he going to do when you give him more resources?
And to me, it's like the question has kind of already
been answered is like, well, he takes the IU jet and goes meets
Wilkerson again and probably UPS the UPS, the NIL offer and he
signs the player against Kentucky.
And like, I'm I'm sure Devries is like, wow, I didn't have
those things at West Virginia. Like when I when I asked for the
jet, they were like, no, we ain't got no more money in
mortgage. Like it's he's showing to me
that he's doing more with the resources IU has and again,
trying to trusting and trusting in the process.
Like the guy just did it in West Virginia.
He knows how to do it. He's showing me not going to
show me anything. He's showing that he can use the
higher resources at a higher school to do what he just did.
Just do it at a better level. And I guess I would just put a
slightly different spin on it and say it's less about the
resources and it's more about the culture of college
basketball as it has to be addressed by the head coach at a
major program. And I think that, and again, not
just a Mike Woodson thing, also an Archie Miller thing, also a
Tom Crean thing. On and off there, more on than
off at the end. There are things you have to do
in recruiting, in player development and player
relationships. And I think Darren Devries looks
like he's off to a really good start with that, better than
perhaps what we saw out of his predecessors.
But it's early, so we'll wait and see what happens.
Yeah, but I'm excited. It's, it's a good start.
I'm glad Scott's excited folks. That's that's a key, key element
as well. So anyway, all right, well,
that'll wrap it up for us. We'll be back with more.
If you are not planning on going to the spring game, go to the
spring game. You know, and if you've not
driven from Indianapolis to Bloomington since the Interstate
opened, it's it's really fast. Like my sister lives in
Zionsville. I live on the southeast side of
Bloomington. It is an hour from my door to
her door. So this honestly, this is like
driving downtown, you know, for for a lot of people in terms of
the traffic. So take advantage.
And I've been saying that for a year now, like it's been great.
It's been open the whole football season.
It's fantastic. I was in Bloomington today.
It was an hour. I bet you Caulfield 2024 it's
like driving downtown. So anyway, just just yes, please
come join us for the spring game and we'll we'll keep an eye out
for you and try to say hi. Anyway for Scott, I'm Galen,
this is Crimson cast. Thanks for joining us.
Be sure to check out the entire roster of shows on the back home
network and we'll be back maybe this weekend with some spring
game thoughts, maybe some more recruit signing.
Keep your eyes and ears open for the emergency pods as they
emerge. We'll catch you folks.
As I said, on the flip side, stay never daunted.
Bring back the bison. So everybody.