You're listening to the Back Home Network presented by Home
Field Apparel. Welcome back to Crimson Cast,
Gayla Clavio joining you. It is the 18th of June, almost
summertime officially as we're heading towards the longest day
of the year, and we had some extra time today.
We had a meeting cancelled, so I put out a call for some
impromptu podcast questions and here we are.
So we're going to tackle a few items that you find folks out in
social media land have sent our direction.
Had these number of questions about IE football, had a couple
about basketball, had a lot of alcohol related questions.
I guess everybody's minds are on the weekend, which I'm with you
folks 100%. But anyway, we're going to
tackle those here in just a second.
But first of all, just a reminder that Crimson Cast is
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Also, just a reminder that coming up here very soon, we've
got the Indiana Volleyball golf outing Thursday, June 27th, a
little over a week from now, 10:00 AM shotgun start at the
Hawthorne's Golf and Country Club.
And this is a great way for you to support IU Volleyball who's
having just a dynamite. Set of of occurrences going on
on the recruiting trail here lately.
Signed one of the top classes in college volleyball for this
incoming year. They're already off to a great
start. 3 ladies signed for 2026 and you know, folks in this era,
that's all happening at least in part through NIL.
You know, yes, vision, yes, the program's going in the right
location, but at the end of the day, you got to have the NIL
support. This event is an awesome way to
do that. Go to in
forindiana.com/volleyball and you'll see some registration
options for the event. On the 27th, $275 gets you on
the course for the golf event. That includes breakfast prior to
the round, lunch following the round, a silent auction and then
an interaction with the volleyball athletes that play
for Indiana, as well as some IU volleyball swag.
If you got four people that you want to put together and come
out there, it's $1000 for the team, so you save some money
there. Business owners, you can also
sponsor a whole for $250. That's front and back nine
sponsorships as well as various additional core sponsors.
Go to inforindiana.com/volleyball.
And hopefully we see you there on the 27th.
I'll be there and I hope I see you there as well.
Let them know I sent you again. The 27th that's Thursday of next
week up in Fishers at the Hawthorne's IU volleyball NIL
event. All right, let's dive into the
questions that you had out there today and, you know, let me
tackle a couple of of larger scale questions, then we'll get
to some of the fun ones a little bit later on.
So first of all, a a good question here, I think from Adam
Cabe, who of course is, is a regular in terms of, of being on
our Twitter. And he asked a question which
I'm going to pop on screen here. Hopefully you can see this given
for those of you watching on the video.
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So. Adam asks.
Given the successes at all previous stops for Coach Sig and
the addition of difference making players, what do you
think lends the national pundits assuming IU only gets 1:00 to
4:00? Wins next season vibes alone
won't do it, but this team really seems to be heading to
five to eight wins in my honest opinion.
So, Adam, it's a great question. And I think it's one of those
situations where we have to balance in the minds of the
pundits, in the minds of the people who are trying to keep
track of college football. Couple of things.
First of all, most punditry in college football is pretty
static in nature most of the time.
There's there's teams at the beginning of every year.
If you go back and go through the last 10 to 15 years, there's
teams that have amazing seasons that nobody saw coming.
And there's teams that have bad seasons who were supposed to be
good that no one saw that coming either, you know, And I think to
a large degree, even with all of the numbers that are in the game
right now and, and the way that that you can quantify a lot that
goes on with college football, realistically speaking, most of
the time you're going to be gravitating towards the programs
that have demonstrated success, particularly under coaches that
have demonstrated success there. So that's two strikes already
against IU, you know if. And, and I, I think this goes
both ways. I mean, everybody remembers how
high the pundits were, relatively speaking, on IU going
into the 2021 season because the information that you had going
into that season was, well, gosh, Indiana's got their
starting quarterback. Back.
They've got all these various pieces offensively that look
good. The defense we assume will be
good because they've got a defensive minded coach.
They seem to make the right moves in the portal and we're
going to assume the players are going to develop what nobody
anticipated. Well, there were several things
that season, obviously, you know, you know, why, why did
Indiana get rated 16th? Why were IU fans upset about
that? They felt like IU should have
been rated higher. But nobody anticipated Michael
Pennix not being ready. Nobody anticipated the huge void
in offensive ability that came from losing, you know, the
offensive coordinator from the previous year, Caitlyn de Boer.
And, you know, all those things kind of collide, but that it
wasn't like people looked at that in the preseason and said,
oh, IU is going to suck. You know, IU was ranked 16th
going into that season. And clearly they were not
anywhere close to that good. So I think what's going on with
Cignetti, yes, people acknowledge that Cignetti is has
been successful, but. You can look at Cignetti
successes and you can say, well, there's a difference between
winning at Elon or winning at James Madison versus winning at
a Big 10 school, especially arguably the worst football
school in the Big 10 in terms of overall history and reputation
and things like that. I mean, Indiana hasn't been the
the worst in the conference over the last 10 years if you take
everything on aggregate, but they're certainly not in the top
half and. You can even apply that to the
players. Yes, you've got difference
making players that are coming up, but most of those players
are coming from the lowest level of FBS.
And while they were certainly impressive at James Madison or
some of the other places, and then, you know, granted you've
had some power conference players sprinkled in, at the end
of the day, it's hard to look at that and immediately say, well,
of course Indiana's going to rise up to, you know, five to
eight wins when you're coming off of, you know, consecutive
seasons, essentially where three consecutive seasons where you
just didn't measure up all things considered.
And so it's a safe pick if you pick Indiana 17th or 18th in the
conference because it's a brand new coaching staff.
And look, as as much as I think IU fans and and media people, my
and I include myself in this, have bought into this idea that
IU is going to be good at least like bowl eligible good this
year. There's a real chance that it
doesn't translate. You know, there's a real chance
that that, you know, the team is still a mess and that the
offense isn't sorted and that the defense can't contribute at
the level that it needs to. All of that is possible.
I, I tend to think that between the relative softness of the
schedule, the uncertainty of some of the teams and elsewhere
in the Big 10, the workmanlike approach that Signetti and his
staff are taking with their players, I tend to think that
they're going to be better by a pretty significant margin than
what a lot of pundits are projecting.
But I understand why the pundits are projecting what they're
projecting. And so I, I would actually
embrace this if I were you all, I would just say, you know what,
let the people who's you know, who are supposed to be keeping
track of this stuff, let them say IU is going to be bad.
It'll be that much more rewarding when IU is good.
And if IU does end up kind of falling short of the
expectations of the fan base has you can always fall back on.
Well, all right, it's a little bit of a longer Rd. than
everybody thought that it might. Be because again, I you know
what I would remind the one thing last thing I'll say on
this is it's not basketball. You know, it is very hard to
take a bad team and turn them into a bowl eligible team in one
year. That wasn't what happened under
Kevin Wilson, you know, and I and I think.
Even with, you know, I mean, Tom Allen did not inherit a bad
team. I thought he inherited a pretty
good team and kind of treaded water for a couple of years
before they kind of punched through in that 2019 season and
got bowl eligible. But you know that that's that's
where sometimes it does go longer than we would like it to.
And it's why I'm still in my mind hedging my bets in terms of
like, not trying to be overly optimistic with this IU team.
Because at the end of it all, it's not a you you're, you're
getting overly excited about IU football, sets you, sets you up
for disappointment, sets you up for thinking, well, gosh, are we
over rating the coaching staff? Are we over rating the players?
When you realistically what you should be approaching it with, I
think is a mentality of it's hard to get that many guys going
in the right direction. It's hard to change a culture
overnight. And even with a bunch of
winnable games, we've all seen in college football that even
the most winnable games might not be things you come away
with. I mean, Indiana won that game
last. Year against.
Wisconsin at home, which fits into that category where it's
like, should Wisconsin have lost that game?
Absolutely not. But they did against an inferior
opponent, so. You know, that's the kind of
thing you got to think about and that's I think we're all that's
coming from. So we'll see.
Question from Patrick. Felts need all the IU football
uniform thoughts. So for those of you who missed
this announcement yesterday, this was kind of greeted with
with some interesting mixtures of things as there was a leak
off of Tavin Jackson's web. I think it was a Snapchat.
And then IU actually released the the the jerseys that they're
going to be using at least the home jerseys for next year.
I'm going to call them up here on the on the video screen, you
can kind of see them. It's a little bit of a smaller
picture, but there we go. So you can see like for those
who haven't seen these jerseys, I'll I'll try to remember to put
a link in the sub stack for those of you who haven't seen
these. This is interesting, you know,
from the standpoint of. The, the, the, the lettering's a
lot bigger. The number on the front looks a
lot bigger. It's a really simple design and
it's, it's not a bad design. It's not like I wouldn't call it
eye-catching or anything like that in terms of, you know,
being something that we're going to remember for the rest of our
lives. The 2024 uniforms, Probably not
our friend IU Artifacts noted that he's getting some 1964
season vibes because that was the first year that Indiana
appeared on the front of the football uniforms that the
actual. Word Indiana and I can kind of
see it when I look at that picture.
I overall, I'll be, I'll be honest.
Like I know a lot of people that complaints about the uniforms
last year. I don't get like 2 jacked one
way or the other about the uniforms.
You know, what I would really like is like a clean brand that
is pleasant to look at that isn't too derivative and is, you
know, it is kind of faithful to the overall branding that I use
had in in, you know, across most of its sports.
And so when I looked at them, I was like, well, all right, I was
initially a little bit negative on the design itself.
I was like, I wish that they had done a little bit more with it,
but the more I look at it, I was like, it's a really
straightforward design. It it doesn't take a lot of
risks, but it also doesn't put IU in a particularly bad light
in terms of of how it comes across.
So it's all right. You know, I'd give them a, I'd
give them AB minus. I guess in execution.
I think there's a lot of room for improvement.
And I think a lot of the people who reacted negatively to the
reveal yesterday, as it were, a lot of that negativity is a
built up kind of frustration over the lack of innovative
ideas with IU football uniforms since the Kevin Wilson era.
And I think a lot of that's been by design.
I can kind of see Kurt Cignetti not really wanting a lot of
really flashy stuff as far as the uniform itself is concerned.
But maybe not. Maybe I'm wrong on that.
I know Tom Allen certainly seemed to want a very
straightforward look compared to what Kevin Wilson was interested
in. You know, so I'm curious to see
how this look evolves over time. But for 2024, I think what
they've got is fine. We had a couple of other quick
questions in terms of of the football side of things.
We we'll get a lot of tailgate questions, which I love.
And I think it's I I'm going to try to tackle a couple of these.
First of all, Al Forno, good to see you again on Twitter.
Al, outside of the Rose Bowl, which new Big 10 stadium or game
day experience do you recommend checking out?
So of the other three, Oregon, Washington and USC, I've only
been to one and it's Oregon and I, I actually really highly
recommend checking out Austin Stadium.
It's a really cool design. It's a smaller stadium and most
of these, most of the West Coast stadiums that aren't the
Coliseum or the Rose Bowl, I think they're smaller than you
might anticipate them being. But I remember I went for it was
it was Oregon, Portland State, like it was, it was not that
important of a game. So it was.
Easy to get tickets. It was raining and Gray,
shockingly, but it was cool. Like walked around the whole
stadium a couple of times. There's like an overhang area.
The vibe was cool and it was neat 'cause it was like, this is
where Oregon does all of their, their magic stuff.
And I thought it was really cool.
I, I am unquestionably the most interested in going to
Washington to watch a game. That whole scene has always
looked really fascinating, like going all the way back to, I
remember watching, you know, Huskies football back in the 80s
and 90s when and they won a national title and, and we're a
real national player. So that's the one I'm most
interested in. I I'm certain.
I will go to the game at USC when they play out there.
I have no clue what to expect with that.
But yeah, I think Washington is the one I would like to go see
that I haven't yet, but I would absolutely recommend when
Indiana plays at Oregon, go check.
That one out, 'cause I think that'll be a really cool one if
you haven't been up there before.
Plus, Eugene's just a kind of a fascinating place.
It is in the middle of nowhere, relatively speaking, in the
drive from Portland to Eugene. That's some wild landscape going
down the road, man. I mean, this is some moonscape
stuff going on out there. Like it just kind of feels,
especially if you grew up in the Midwest and you spent most of
your time in the Midwest, it kind of feels like you're on
another planet or another celestial body.
So that would be the one I would I would recommend going and
checking out our let's see. We had a question regarding this
is from from Hoosier beer guy. Assuming some on field success
occurs in the sig era, what are some improvements you'd expect
to see to the game day experience slash stadium slash
facilities slash program to become a more serious football
school? I think first and foremost, get
rid of pass outs. Stop letting people leave the
stadium. I mean, I, I don't know how you
instill a sense of seriousness around a football program if
you're just allow people to leave whenever they want.
I know that that's been historically how it's operated.
But I would argue that for the majority of attendees for IU
football, many of whom just have tickets because they're trying
to get priority points for basketball, you know, treating
it like something that you don't have to make much of an
investment in from a time perspective or a fanship
perspective is a mistake. And I think especially for.
Students. Giving them the option of
leaving and and potentially coming back, even though I know
a lot of them don't just doesn't seem like a lot of it makes a
lot of sense. So get rid of the pass outs.
I think first and foremost, I know this will probably not be
received well, but I think I think there's a place and you
know, you need to have a good role for the marching 100 and.
What you do, I think a more logical balance needs to be
struck. Between what role the marching
hundreds playing in the the in game like during play or do you
know during drive stuff versus what happens with the Pai just.
You know as. As much as we have a lot of
traditionalists in the football audience, and I understand where
you're coming from on this, and we have a lot of marching 100
adherents out there. And so this is not intended to
be a criticism, but more of a reality.
I feel like, you know, the, the, the atmosphere that you need to
create an intimidating environment in college football
really cannot be achieved with a marching band.
It, it just doesn't have the same vibe.
And, and I think younger fans, especially, I think players, I,
I think that there's a general and, and I, I include the
opposing teams players in this as well.
You, you need to have something that creates a sense of
foreboding from an atmospheric perspective within the stadium.
That's kind of. The direction I'd like to see
things go, I think there's been some strides made in the last
couple of years on that and some of it is really, you know, maybe
as much about modernizing. Some of the stuff that that the
the band is doing within the confines of the game day
atmosphere, you know, I think the overall, the overall video
board production could definitely get better.
That's, you know, it was, it was kind of a revelation when I you
started regularly doing video board shows.
What about 12/13/14 years ago? I think that you could use a
reset there, certainly. And then I think just in general
scale, like the scale of services within the stadium that
they've been slowly doing upgrades there's Suppose we're
going to do a whole deep dive into what the changes are going
to be in the football stadium at some point this summer.
We're going to try to get a couple people on who can speak
more directly to that. But you know that they're adding
more food options. There's supposed to be some
really cool new food options in the North End zone, which is
great to hear, especially since that's where my tickets are
going to be now. I think putting the students up
in the North End zone, curving around onto the east side of the
stadium is an interesting approach.
I'm curious to see how that plays out and I think that's
going to be helpful. But look, I I've said this for
years, like the biggest adjustment that you could make
to the game day experience is putting a competitive product
out on the field. In big 10 play and making it so
that it is compelling to watch the team play football.
You know, I feel like a lot of the strides and this didn't get
talked about as much I think as it should have during the time,
but I think a lot of the strides that IU made in terms of their
overall game day atmosphere in the latter stages of the Kevin
Wilson era and and even into the.
The the first few years of the Tom Allen era, a lot of it was
really because the team was competitive in a lot of those
games, like you didn't feel like.
You were going and the game was going to be over at halftime.
But I but I also think beyond that, you know, figuring out a
way to continue to get people engaged, you know, making sure
that you've got the right kind of atmospherics to support the
crowd, doing what you want them to do at key moments in games.
I think that that's really key. It's a very different sort of
setup and experience than Assembly Hall because Assembly
Hall even today, even with the lack of relative success over
the course of the last, I don't know, 20 years or so
consistently still knows when to get loud.
And it still achieves A level of, of, of, you know, the kind
of intimidation that you just, you rarely ever come close to in
Memorial Stadium. But that would be some of the
things I would talk about there, I think.
And I think it's going to be a work in progress.
And I think as with anything, the crowd's going to feed off
the team. And then in in response to that,
the team can feed off the crowd. But if this is not a, this is
absolutely the egg has to be laid first by the team.
That has the Hatch. Before the crowd's really going
to be able to learn to get into things.
And I think that's that's going to be the key element there.
So let's switch gears to basketball real quick.
Any sports partisan says it feels let me actually pop this
up on screen. For those of you who would like
to see this in person, so. The question is for it feels
like every pre season, even back to Archie's early years, we
discussed how deep the roster is and how.
Difficult it'll be to split out. Playing time, however, is there
actual objectivity to this upcoming rosters depth in terms
of both experience and potential contributions?
It's a great question. This is something that Scott
talks about all the time and and repeats like the same lament at
the end of every year. It's like, you know, every year
we, we tie ourselves up in knots talking about who's going to
play X1 number of minutes. How are they going to separate
these things out and then by the end of the year it doesn't
really matter. And you know the so I, I think
when you get down to it, I think that this IU team does have a
hierarchy in terms of what we're what we should expect going into
the year. I think it's pretty
straightforward this year that when you when you look at the
players that are here, when you look at the players that are
going to be incoming. You know, it really comes down
to Omar Ballo's going to get 25 to 27 minutes.
Malik Renew's going to get about the same, maybe slightly more.
Trey Galloway's probably going to get about 26 to 30 minutes
off the bench or starting, I think either way.
But you know what, I think if he comes off the bench as a six
man, he'll still get more or less the same number of minutes.
Miles Rice is probably going to get a lot of minutes of point
guard. He played a ton of minutes last
year for for Washington State. And then I think the, you know,
Mackenzie Imbacco is probably a guy that, you know, gets a, a a
ton of minutes as well. I mean, he in his freshman year
played 67% of available minutes, 68% of available minutes, which
is a lot. I just saw.
I'll expect like that group plus Kane and Carlisle, plus probably
Bryson Tucker. You know that would be.
That's probably where. You're, you know, if you, if you
think about the players that aren't going to get the most
minutes, I think that's probably the top of the pecking order.
You know, the, the questions I have on this and we had another
question specifically about minutes, which which, you know,
it's hard to really meter out exactly what it looks like.
I am really curious to see like, you know, what is it?
What kind of a contribution are we going to see out of Luke
Goody? He played about half of the
available minutes at Illinois last year.
Will we see him play as many this year?
Is it something where he comes in regularly off the bench and
plays a bunch or do his minutes kind of get ratcheted back a
little bit? Last year was the first year he
played that many minutes. He didn't really didn't play
very much at all his first two years.
And I think with him and potentially Trey Galloway and
potentially Bryson Tucker, you know, as as three pieces that
are going to have to pop in and really earn their minutes.
You know, I like that group feels like the group that's
going to get the most run. There are wild cards in that and
that, you know, naming namely what's Gabe Cups, what's Jakai
Newton and and what's Anthony Leal's overall contributions.
You know, I, I. Feel like those guys, it's going
to be tough for them to get on the floor regularly with the
three guards that you've. Got in the mix.
But I could be wrong. On that, I mean, if Jakai
Newton's bounced back and can provide that athleticism, I
could see him, you know, doing fairly well.
I, I feel like the, the, to go back to the core question here
that that sports partisan is asking, objectively speaking, it
feels like this is a pretty deep roster in terms of guys that you
wouldn't feel concerned about playing, You know, guys that you
can go in and, and say, you know, we know we've seen a
season of Miles Rice. We know Miles Rice can play at a
really high level. You know, we've seen Luke Goody
now in the kind of role that you would like him to play here and
he was, you know, one of the top 100 best offensive efficiency
players in the whole country last year.
You know, that's that's that only gets a mirage.
I think that, you know, even you know, Omar Balo, like we've seen
Omar Balo play multiple years. We've seen him as IU fans.
We saw him in Vegas and I. Feel like you can feel pretty
good about. What we know about those guys, I
feel like you can feel pretty good about what we know about
Trey Galloway. I feel like what you saw to
Mackenzie and Baca, we can feel pretty good about that.
You know, I so I think the the wild cards are really the guys
that we. We don't have a clear
understanding of what they can do.
And this is where, you know, this is where I would throw
Bryce and Tucker, and we just don't know what he's going to
look like. He could be the breakthrough
star on this IU team, you know, Gabe Cups like what?
How does he respond to what happened last year?
That I don't entirely know. You know, it was a tough season
for Gabe Cubs. He got put in some situations, I
think that he wasn't ready for physically or just from a mental
approach to the game. How does he respond this off?
Season and and just do his minutes get dialed way back.
What happens there? And then with Jokai Newton,
obviously it's the injury situation and and also then the
adaptation to the college game. You know, Carlisle's the only
one I'm not 100% certain of, of the, of, you know, the projected
starters. You you could look at what he
did last year and you can say that, you know, efficiency wise,
he wasn't an efficient scorer at all.
You know, he did a good job of of dishing out assists,
relatively speaking. You know, but he didn't shoot
the ball well and he didn't play a huge amount of minutes.
Actually, by percentage, played fewer minutes than.
You know, over the course of the season and and certainly played
in far fewer games than Luke Goody did and certainly less
than Trey Galloway. So does Galloway start there?
And is Carlisle a guy off the bench?
But still, it's nice to have a piece that you've seen for at
least a year, you know, at the power five level or whatever it
is now the the power two level. I just don't know if if
Carlisle's necessarily a guy that you can expect to play a
huge number of minutes and then what happens with the remaining
aspects of the backcourt with that.
So to answer the macro question though, I really do feel like
there's a lot more tested depth and experience.
I think the biggest question, and this kind of goes back,
there's a really nice piece that Evan Mayakawa published today,
which I'll also try to remember to put in the crim in the sub
stack about, you know, the key to winning in the portal era.
And a lot of it comes down to, you know, can you preference the
OR can you give preferential court time to the people on your
roster who are returning who already know the system?
But then that also leads to the larger question of how much do
the systems themselves need to change with IU because we've
seen, you know, offensively, this was not what you want to
see moving forward in the last couple of years.
I think with IU, it was a bit, you know, it was OK, but it was
largely Trace Jackson Davis two years ago.
And then this past year, it really was a struggle on offense
and defensively. I'd argue that we haven't seen
Indiana be where they want to be, you know, in either of the
last two seasons either. So how much, how much can these
new pieces adapt? And this is where maybe the idea
that you want to have that the carryover of the minutes, maybe
it's not as important with IU if they're having to change the way
that they're doing business on both ends of the floor.
So I do think objectively this is a much deeper team.
I think it's. Objectively, in terms of top to
bottom like that, those top 8-9 spots on the roster, I think
it's a top three roster in the conference right now as far as
how that meters. Out.
I think we have a pretty good sense of how it's going to look
with the bigs and I think there's more questions the
further away from the bigs that you get.
Simply in terms of just how everything gets allocated.
So let's let's real quick before we wrap up because we are we, we
kind of answered the question with the with the Evan asked
about the minutes. So hopefully he heard that.
So we appreciate Evan asking that question.
We did have a couple of questions regarding the the
tailgate scene. So someone asked, this is Zach
Curry. Imagine this.
It's a sunny but chilly Saturday afternoon in October.
I don't like chilly afternoons in October.
Give me November for the chilly afternoons.
The Hoosiers of the home team kick off at 3:30.
Given the weather, what is on the menu at the tailgate?
Wow. So, yeah, I think by the time
you get to that time of year, you really need to try to pivot
to not just food that handles better in colder weather.
It's bad enough for an afternoon tailgate.
I think it's different. Like for a morning tailgate,
that to me is perfect. Like breakfast sandwiches on the
Blackstone griddle and Donuts that right there.
Like you put that combo together, throw some coffee in,
throw some some hard Truth Hill cinnamon vodka into the mix.
I mean, you got a nice morning going right there for yourself.
You know, for an afternoon tailgate, I think it's a little
bit more complicated in as much as you've, you know, to me for
that, for a lunchtime tailgate, I'm probably doing like some
kind of of griddle based Philly cheese steak.
I, I think that that really sounds good.
You'll get some seasoned, some seasoned steak, maybe some
chicken, get some cheese on there.
You'll get some homemade rolls and, and get those, you know,
properly buttered, get them toasted up on the griddle.
And I mean, I think you're good to go there.
You've, you've really got a nice combo 'cause I think with, with
that temperature, especially for a lunchtime tailgate, you want
something that's going to be substantial 'cause you're
probably you people are going to be drinking during that time
period as well. And you want to make sure you
send people in where they don't have to buy something at the
concession stand. It's an option if they get
hungry later. But I always try to set
something up where people are going to leave the tailgate at
least feeling like they got something substantial in their
stomach, particularly for a lunchtime tailgate 'cause you're
probably, you've probably already pregamed a bit before
you got there. As far as like what's the
beverage of choice? That's a borderline temperature,
like 4345°. I really, I find I don't really
like beer at that temperature. I like beer when it's a bit
warmer or I like a a darker beer when it's colder.
But like in the mid 40s, I'm probably leaning towards some
kind of a cocktail or mixed drink.
And again, something that I think doesn't require ice.
I got to think about what that would be though, because a lot
of it is about if you're, if you're tying it in with the
Philly cheese steak, beer's probably the best option there.
But I think you're probably going for an amber ale or a.
Porter or something along those lines, something that could be
cool as opposed to ice cold, something that's going to
properly support the flavor profile of the Philly cheese
steak. That would that would be the
mixer. So I think a good a good.
Amber, I'm more of a Porter guy myself.
So I'm, I'm, you know, that's, that's a my Bach type of
situation as well or an Oktoberfest type of situation.
So like a, a good like a rogue dead guy or something like that.
I think pairs really well in that circumstance.
I had a couple other alcohol related questions.
So I guess I'll ask. I'll I'll answer.
Those real quick before we wrap up the we had a question about
where'd it go here? Did all of those questions
disappear? Maybe maybe somebody took them
off. Well, someone asked me like my
top three mixed drinks, which my mixed drink tastes are all over
the place. So with no particular order, oh,
sorry, this is Craig Davis asked us this top three cocktails
ranked. I guess I have to rank them.
So I think, you know, for #3 I'm probably going for a very, you
know, just the, just the, the classic bourbon and Coke, which
I know a lot of people like, that's boring.
It's not really a mixed drink. It's, it actually is a perfect
mixed drink in a lot of ways. You know, particularly if you've
got like a mid grade or slightly lower bourbon or Scotch, either
one works really well. I think with Coca-Cola, I prefer
the Mexican Coke more and more now with this, with this
combination and it'll pair. This actually pairs well with
another question I got. I think you get some bullet rye.
And Coke, that, that mixes really well together.
I'm gonna put that at #3 #2 this is a remnant of my time in the
South, particularly living in Memphis.
But I've always loved a hurricane.
Not really a drink you get a lot up here in Indiana, but a well
done hurricane to me encapsulates all the, the things
I like in, in a cocktail and then all that.
My top one is is a Manhattan, which to me I think is the kind
of the more it's it's it's a nice sophisticated jerk without
being pretentious. It's it's pretty straightforward
and I just like the flavors. I think it actually the
Manhattan. Is kind of underrated at a
tailgate setting, you know, you have to kind of premix it a
little bit. 'Cause it's hard to get the
ratios right necessarily in the field, but I think that's a good
option. So I would I would check that
out. On a related note, Craig asks
how many do you consume after IU football wins their eighth game
of the year? Enough that I'll probably lose
track of the actual number. It's I'm not, I, I'm not Craig.
I'm not doing it. I'm not getting down the pathway
of, of dreaming that big yet. But I appreciate the thought
process. Thank you.
We did have a question and I'm, I'm trying to locate it here
'cause I want to give the person credit, but someone asked like,
what are your, what are your top three bourbons?
I actually. Think they deleted the the oh.
No, there is. Darryl Frazier asked us.
What 3 bourbons do you really enjoy everyday?
Sipper 1 to share one for a special occasion.
So I mentioned Bullet earlier, not the rye, but the the the
rye. I guess the rye would work here
as well. I really enjoy that as a as a
sipping bourbon. It's kind of between that and
Four Roses right now. I really enjoy both of those as
options. I've kind of migrated away from.
I used to be a big Maker's Mark adhere and but but less and less
here lately. I'm probably not going to get I
I think that my my my one to share the it's a little on the
pricey side, but I if you have not had the hubers bourbons yet,
the double oak bourbon is outstanding.
And again, it's a little on the pricier side, but I would
absolutely recommend any of their bourbons on us.
I particularly love the double oak, but even the even the
regular one is it's just really well done.
And and I think, you know, obviously you've got the people
who are like you can't do bourbon unless it's like
specifically from that particular area of Kentucky.
Fine, whatever you you don't have to try it.
But for those who are willing to venture out a little bit, give
the hubers a try. I was blown away the first time
I had it, like how good it was. And I would absolutely recommend
it to everybody. And you never know, if you stop
by the tailgate this year, there might be a little bit of a
sample for you. And then as far as special
occasion, had this a few weeks ago and I would, I would highly
recommend that. It's actually on the allocation
list at Big Red and Bloomington, but Russell's Reserve Private
barrel select, highly recommend that.
It's I, I don't want to spoil the surprise, but it's under
$100 and it's, it's, I find it to be awesome.
That's exactly what I'm looking for in those circumstances.
One last question, we had recommended hope this is from
Jeff Dix recommended hotel for two nights in in in Bloomington
so and then a recommended lunch. Spot So you know, I'll say on
the hotel front, I always recommend if.
If you as long as you don't want or need the traditional big ish
hotel experience. Try the Grant Street Inn and try
Showers in. They're normally pretty
reasonably priced. Their their location is amazing
and I think a lot of people forget about them when they come
to Bloomington. Grant Street Inn is at 7th or
it's actually 6th and and Grant, so it's real close to Kirkwood.
And then Showers Inn is at like I think 9th and Washington or
8th and Washington again. Really.
Nice location and you're close
to everything. If those don't work out, I mean.
You know the the. The graduate is where most of
the people that I've had come in stay here lately.
That's probably also if if where you were looking at originally
was pricey, I think you know the graduate probably will be as
well, but. Again, you can't beat the
location, so I would recommend that.
As far as recommended lunch spots in Bloomington right now
rattled off a few of these in previous podcasts, but just to
kind of, you know, take a. Little bit of a meandering tour
in downtown as far as where to stop in for lunch if you're
alone, like if you don't have somebody under 21, I still like
the the lunch like lunch at the tap is good lunch at Uptown and
you can have somebody who's under 21.
There is always, I think, a great experience.
I'd recommend trying out Da Vinci if you haven't been there.
Da Vinci's at basically third and Washington, so it's a little
off the. Beaten path from.
Kirkwood, but their lunch is awesome.
Austria Rago, as long as it's not a Monday, 'cause I think
they're closed on Mondays for lunch, but they have great
options all the way up and down the line.
Beware, Austria. The sandwiches are incredible,
but they're too big for lunch. By yourself.
You could go in with a friend and share one of those
sandwiches and you'd both be stuffed.
And then you know, I would probably also throw in
Brewberger, which just opened. So there's a Brewberger at 3rd
and Grant. So again, not too.
Far off the off the strip, but that's been a real welcome
addition to downtown. And then of course, the
regulars. Buffaloes is always a great
place to stop in for lunch. And if you haven't stopped into
Buffaloes and and tried the smash burgers, I would
absolutely check that out. For the more health conscious,
go to Ever Bowl, which the IU women's basketball program has
been promoting on on their Instagram.
I go there quite a bit. Ever Bowl is right above
Lenny's, where Lenny's is at now in Kirkwood.
And for a much lighter option, I think it's a really good one.
I always have enjoyed what they've had there.
So anyway, hopefully that was helpful, Jeff.
And if you've got any other questions, certainly send those
in and let us know. Anyway, way over time here.
So we're going to wrap up, but I really appreciate all you folks
tuning in. Appreciate everybody that asked
questions. I'm sorry I didn't get to.
All of them. I think we answered like 6
questions. It took 42 minutes.
That's the way it rolls here anyway.
We'll be back with more Crimson cast coming up soon and as we
get closer to the start of football season, we'll have
certainly more to talk about there as well as basketball for
the whole back home network. I'm Galen Clavio, thanks for
joining us, folks. We'll catch you.
Folks, on the flip side, bring back the bison.
That's all. Everybody, bye.