For those who are watching on YouTube, it's helpful when you
put the micro SD card in the podcast recorder before you
start the recording of the of the video.
So, Taylor, entertain the people for a second, please.
Hello people. I'm going to mute us both now.
Here we go. Hold on a second.
You're listening to the Back Home Network presented by Home
Field Apparel. Welcome back to Crimson Castiel
and Clavio. Joining you, we got Taylor
Layman with us from Bite Sized Bison joining us on a Wednesday.
We're jamming some podcasting in before the month of July comes
to a close and happy to have you folks joining us.
Football has started practice, Taylor, it's back.
It's officially back and not the greatest day for it weather
wise. It was a sauna, still a sauna
down here in Bloomington right now.
We had some thunderstorms earlier, but they're back on the
practice field and we're ramping up.
We got about a month until the first game of the season.
Yeah, I'm, I'm excited for the season to start.
There are a lot of sports going on.
Like I've been like obsessed with the Olympics since it
started. Watch it constantly.
The gold zone on Peacock is actually really good.
And, and you know, the, the MLB trade deadline just happened
yesterday. You know, I'm a Detroit Tigers
fan, so there's not a lot of relevance from, from my fandom.
But you know what? It's, it's exciting at least.
But I'm ready for college football season to start.
The, The baseball trade trade deadline's always interesting
cause, you know, I'm a nominally a Reds fan, as as people know,
and they never do anything. And they did nothing again.
They did, they made one trade that nobody understood and that
that's one more trade than they normally make.
So I didn't feel like it's never something I get excited about.
Of course, friend of the show and occasional guest Tricia
Whitaker's Tampa Bay Rays traded like their entire team away to
the point that there's been a lot of jokes on social media
about whether she's going to get traded away next.
And that seems entirely possible given their approach.
But I have no idea who won the trade deadline, like what's
going on, anything like that. And I don't think anybody else
does either. It's all conjecture.
But at least there was some news and highlights.
And obviously the Olympics, as you said, have been pretty
interesting so far. When the Olympics are in Europe,
it like, you can watch stuff live.
Like I know like they just had that Leon Marchand race where he
just won his second gold and then obviously people will be
able to watch that later on. That 5-6 hour time difference is
really good. It when it's like a 12 hour time
difference it makes things a lot more complicated.
Yeah, yeah, it's nice to actually, you know, I, I just
work in an office, so it's nice to have it up on like my second
monitor and I just check in on it and I have the audio in my
ears. So it, it's actually been really
nice, like background sound and keeping up with the Olympics and
stuff. But the women's rugby team was
amazing. That last moment when they won
the bronze was so cool. And then I, I actually got
really into the men's gymnastics team the final.
That was really fun too. But yeah, that's been it's been
a good time. We'll, we'll keep an eye on
what's going on in the Olympics. Still a lot of of Hoosier
athletes in the midst of things. And so it's it's cool to see
that, but we're going to talk IU sports.
So we're going to do that. But first, just a reminder,
we're part of the back home network assembly call doing the
work podcast XS and Joes. I mean, we've got Austin renders
new show where he's interviewing specialists, talking about
women's basketball in the Big 10.
All of those podcasts brought to you by Home Field Apparel, your
place to go for the finest in college fashions, the softest
fabrics, the coolest designs. I, I said on the last show that
they were gonna have something dropped soon.
Now, I had not gotten any advance notice of this Taylor,
but they did it again. I'm actually gonna for the for
the people watching on YouTube, I'm gonna go ahead and share the
screen here for a second 'cause I, I want everybody to see what
they've done. So they've announced and I will
narrate it for those of you who are listening on audio.
But if you'd like to go check out the back home network
YouTube channel. You can see this entire episode
live or not live, but in video. That's not, that's different
than live. I I went to school to learn
those things. But you can see here the 2024
Home Field Platinum Football Boxes coming out August 9th and
to to use the copyright off the website.
The 2024 Home Field Platinum Football Boxes are our most
ambitious to date, curated specifically to ring in a new
era for our game. They're made for football fans,
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We built these for the truest of the true and you can obviously
sign up and you should sign up e-mail.
You can identify which team that you're backing, which of course
for us is Indiana. But what caught my attention, I
was just scrolling through this and I get down past this
horrific Maryland collection that they've got just just
kidding, Maryland, sorry. But down here above the 216 new
design section, I spy an Indiana Hoosiers 1991 copper bowl
trucker hat, which I, I got to tell you, I was immediately
smitten by that. Like, you know, as, as, as
someone who's literally got an Oval over his head in, in the,
and I got the, I got the block pitchfork over there.
I'm a sucker for anything 90s IU and wow, that's a nice looking
hat. I'm, I'm really excited.
I'm, I'm assuming that's in the IU box and that looks
tremendous. And you can only get it through
these platinum boxes. It's not going to be available
apparently through their regular retail.
That's my birthday, Galen. We were just, we were just
talking about my birthday, August 9th.
I gotta get one of those. That is Taylor's birthday, so.
I should buy one. For myself, you should do do
give yourself absolutely a present.
I think you deserve it after all the hard work you've done
bringing bite sized bite into the masses.
And so anyway, check out home field apparel.com.
Go and sign up for their their newsletter.
They'll let you know when these are dropping again, August 9th,
which is about what nine days, 10 days from whenever you're
listening to this, those will be available and you know, home
field apparel, you're going to have some awesome stuff in
there. The boxes I should say they're
going to contain an exclusive T-shirt, an exclusive long
sleeve, an exclusive hoodie, an exclusive hat or ringer T Looks
like IU is getting the hat a a set of core collection socks, a
platinum koozie and then a platinum pass.
And the platinum pass, according to the website, is a physical
pass that allows you to it offers you early access and 20%
off of any new premium football releases through the end of the
regular season. This is almost like a season
pass for video games if you've if you've ever purchased one of
those. So awesome to see home field
doing some new things here. Was curious how they were going
to handle football season and now we can see.
So get over to home field apparel.com and check this out.
Also, just a reminder, we're on Substack Taylor's on Substack
Taylor. I'm going to post this at about
6:00 6/30 on the evening of the 31st.
You've got a promotion running right now for bite sized bison.
Tell the people what it is. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's,
it's kind of the end of a promotion, I guess.
But it's the, the offseason rate is changing to end season rate
at midnight tonight. So from August through December
it's going to be $8 a month for buy size buys and instead of
$5.00 per month, which is what the offseason rate is.
But the annual rate stays the same and existing subscriptions,
they stay the same price. If you already have a monthly
subscription, it stays at the $5.00.
But you know, to be fair to those who.
Who were? Subscribed, you know, during the
offseason and everything. I figured it was, it was, it was
only right. So does the rates do change at
midnight? Tonight, Yeah.
So go go subscribe to Bite Sized Bison.
If you're watching this pod or listening to this pod, I'm
assuming that you like IU football because that's what
we're going to talk about for the remaining 40 minutes or so
of the show. And you won't find a better site
for for written breakdowns and data analysis and and graphs and
and cool visuals than bite sized bison.
So go get yourself availed of that as quickly as possible.
And while you're at it, consider subscribing to Crimson cast on
sub stack crimsoncast.substack.com.
It's free and you get all the podcasts delivered right to your
inbox. We also have an occasional VIP
video. I just had one this morning
which went through everything from full sports schedules in IU
land all the way through to talking about scholarship
restrictions as a resort. Lack of scholarship restrictions
as a part of this new settlement that may or may not actually
stand up to legal challenges in relation to the house
settlement. So we had a lot going on on the
sub stacks. We also do have a paid option
for the VIP videos if you just want to support the website.
We try to give you a little bit something extra back in return,
but go to crimsoncast.substack.com.
We'd love to have you in the family anyway.
Let's go ahead. And really like those VIP videos
you guys do. Yeah, a few videos are awesome.
I need to do more of those. I need to just kind of like
maybe when I'm out walking, Stewart, just like record, you
know, Bill Simmons style while I'm walking around the
neighborhood and just kind of, you know, you know, I was
thinking about taxes today or something like that, I thought.
The points could bird get in the 24 USAT.
Whatever the IU equivalents of those are, I'm sure I could pull
that off. But anyway, let's go ahead and
get to the football as we have several questions from those of
you on Twitter and you know, a lot of a lot of interesting
things. We've had a lot of interest
overall in terms of the the way that the football season is
laying out We and we've got a couple of questions even related
to that. So let's dive into a couple of
these that the people sent. We're not going to be able to
get to all of them, obviously, but I I do think that there's a
lot of good thoughts from the folks out there.
So we did have a question. I'm going to start with this one
from from pit Hoosier, which was seems to be a lot of fan
excitement heading into the season.
Have we seen any ticket sales updates?
What kind of crowd are you expecting for the opener and for
Maryland? Can we come into it if we come
into it for or no? So our buddy respectable Adam on
on Twitter did chime in with this and it's a good answer.
He said, if you don't mind me stepping in, I followed the
ticket chart pretty obsessively in the offseason and sales are
way ahead of where they've been since 2021.
Not talking about sell outs here, but better than it was
before. First game is band day, Maryland
is family weekend. Both are selling well.
I have not looked at the charts. I leave that to Adam to do.
But I, I will say this, I, you know, if you look at first of
all, trying to gauge interest in this program has always been a
fascinating thing. I think people have lost track
of the, the reality that the attendance was pretty good in
the Wilson era and the beginning of the Allen era.
And it was significantly better than it had been in the previous
decade. If you look at what Indiana did
last year in terms of home attendance, the Indiana State
game, excuse me, the Ohio State game had 50,000 and 50 fans.
The Indiana State game had 42,775.
This is all reported attendance. Akron had 44,968 and then
Rutgers. You know, by that point Indiana
had lost four games, still at an attendance of 43611.
If you go back to the, let's say the 2019 season, Indiana started
really slow. They only had 37 people, 37,037
people. I've been to seasons where
they've had 37 people in the stands, but 37,784 for Eastern
Illinois and they, they really, you know, that they were, they
were kind of around that 40,000 mark most of that season.
I feel like given what we've seen in terms of buzz and given
just the general excitement that's kind of worked into the
system of, of even people who are just more IU football
curious than fully committed IU football fans.
I think attendance is going to be pretty good at those first
few games 'cause you know the, the times are going to be good.
The second game's on a Friday, so it's going to be nominally
easier as long as you haven't left for Labor Day weekend.
I'm going to say I think because it's the first game of a new
era, I wouldn't be shocked if there were 47,000 people at that
first game, especially if it's Band day.
And I think if Indiana, even if they're, even if they're, you
know, coming into that Maryland game and they're what, 3:00 and
1:00, I think that you could get close to 50,000 fans for that
game, 'cause I think there will still be a lot of buzz and a lot
of interest. And it'll be the first game
against a Big 10 opponent at home so far this season.
What? What are you thinking?
Yeah, no, I agree. I think even if they are three
and one, they'll they'll be a good crowd.
And and normally it does feel like whenever there is some
excitement going into a season, the first home Big 10 game
usually turns out pretty well. This actually gives me a a, you
know, an idea that I can do for by size bias.
And so I'm glad we talked about this.
But no, yeah, I think you know what, even even last year and if
if I remember correct, your recalls way better on this stuff
than mine, Galen. But if if, if I remember right,
even last year before the season, there was there was some
excitement because of the transfer class that had been
brought in. And I remember thinking, you
know, about like ticket prices and everything.
And and they kind of went down as the season went on.
I guess you know what it is kind of tied to the to the
performance of the team. But I think, you know, that that
first Maryland game, I think that's still pretty early in the
in the season to kind of know exactly how good this team is.
But the UCLA game is important. It's just, you know, here.
You know, so much and and then we're gonna get into this with
another question that we have coming up from Patrick.
But so much of this is about how do people feel like, what's the
vibe around the program And and, you know, does it feel like
there's been enough energy built around what Kurt Signetti has
generated and what his staff has generated that it leads to
something more tangible in terms of fans in the stands?
I have not updated what I'm about to show you all for a
couple of years, but I am going to show it to you.
So this is, this is a chart. Ignore, ignore please.
The fact that the title of the of the, the document is Indiana
football history makes you cry that that's, that's not really
pertinent to this. But what I did was charted
Indiana's reported attendance in Memorial Stadium going back to
1981. And I've got a essentially A5
game rolling average line. And you can see it's kind of
interesting, like, you know, Indiana football attendance only
peaks on that rolling average above 50,000 once in the last 40
some years of football. And that was in that period
around 198788 when Indiana, you know, almost goes to the Rose
Bowl. They beat Michigan, they beat
Ohio State. If it starts to fall off, it
falls way off in the mid 90s. It really hits the nadir in 2005
when the rolling five game or six game average was like 26 1/2
thousand fans. Those were not good times.
You can see it made a nice improvement in the middle of the
Wilson era or really at the end of the Wilson area.
That 2016 season it was all the way up to 46 1/2 thousand and
then coming into the 2021 season it had peaked at 49,000 and then
of course it has receded since then.
So the reason I bring this up is a it reminds me that I need to
actually go back in and update the numbers in that chart.
But, you know, we're we're in a an era where IU football has
kind of plateaued its attendance at a level that's at least
acceptable, you know, in that in that 40 to 43,000 range.
But I feel like we've got the platform here that if Indiana
gets off to a hot start and wins a few games early and maybe is
either wins against UCLA or is at least competitive, those next
couple of home games are going to be games that people are
really going to want to come and be a part of.
And you know, it's not just the Maryland game.
It's that that whole stretch is really interesting to me,
Taylor, because it's like you got Maryland on the 28th, then
you're at Evanston for the Northwestern game.
Then you have a bye and you come back and you've got Nebraska and
Washington at home and back-to-back weekends.
Like that's that. That feels like even if as long
as Indiana isn't like oh, and five by that point or whatever
it is, those two teams by themselves are liable to bring
in a higher level of fan numbers than you would normally get in
the middle of October. It's not like you're playing
like Rutgers in Minnesota or something like that.
Like those are brand name teams, including the the team that was
the runner up in the national championship.
Yeah, no, I agree. And and, you know, especially,
you know, I, I do think I, I do think it the potential turn out
for those games could be tied to the, the Maryland and
Northwestern games. But yeah, no, you're right.
Like these are these are these are good programs to be playing
in Memorial Stadium. Nebraska usually turns out and
and then, you know, Washington, I don't, I don't know.
I, you know, I guess we're, we're, you know, going to figure
it out. But you know, when these new
teams come to traditional Big Ten programs do are our fans
extra interested this year because of the because of the
change? So, yeah, no, I think that's
that's a really good thought, just like, and also that's
that's quite a bit of time from the beginning and from like the
first Big 10 game in UCLA or against UCLA to to that Nebraska
game. There's only one home Big 10
game in between those. So I think fans, you know, might
just be eager to get to Memorial Stadium, too, to see more of
those games. If you like coming to Memorial
Stadium, you're gonna get, you could do it for all seasons.
You're gonna get it in the heat of summer, you're gonna get it
in October when the leaves are turning and you're gonna get a
really cold bucket game this year 'cause it's at the very end
of of November. So yeah, you're gonna, it's like
an absolute spread of, of the climatological conditions in
Bloomington. So it should be fast.
It's. Actually a great point too,
Galen, because both of those that Washington, those
Washington Nebraska games are when Bloomington's typically
most beautiful during the fall. We're going to hypnotize Jed
Fish. She's not going to know what hit
him. He's going to be like, I've
never seen leaves like this before.
This is the life. It's a long way from Arizona.
It is man, they, they even have leaves in Arizona, you know,
they, they just cut cactus and scrub brush and roadrunners.
So, yeah, let's go to to Patrick's question.
He actually had two. We're going to pick the first
one, I guess. I guess it was the second one
that he wrote. Do we really believe that Coach
Sig put a bull's eye on IU for his commentary to the media at
Big 10 Media days or at the basketball game?
Are other teams watching IU because they quote, Googled him
and realized Sig's record is real?
Or we'll be the same old IU until otherwise proven?
There's a couple different ways we could take this question.
I'm going to let you start though, Taylor, because a lot of
this really ties back into this idea of coach speak and how it
relates to motivation and whether or not all this actually
matters or if it's just window dressing for fans in the press.
Yeah, yeah, no, I think I think when it when it comes to the the
bullseye idea that you know, him saying these things maybe is
some sort of bullets and material for teams or or or
maybe like makes other programs aware of Cignetti and and
Indiana. The coaching world is small like
these guys, the coaches all. Already know of Curse Ignati.
They probably had several conversations with him.
They, they probably know the wide receivers coach at Toledo.
Like the, it's a, it's, it's a small world that, that, you
know, as we get to know coaches, the, the fans and the public,
you know, they've already known each other.
And so I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of coaches already knew
that curse Ignati would, would, would carry this sort of swagger
that he has when he got to Indiana.
And so I don't think it would necessarily put a bullseye on on
Indiana's back or anything along those lines, except for, you
know, stories being told through the media and, and, and the way
that, you know, other fan bases perceive Indiana because we
already saw, you know, certain programs.
I, I, I tweeted a guy that was, he's saying what is gained from
this? But what is gained is that he's,
he's offering confidence in, in a bunch of different, you know,
demographics, whether it's fans, whether it's his own team, you
know, I, I think we heard Aiden Fisher, it's, it's, it's a lot
of self-confidence. It gives the players a lot of
confidence that their coach is going out and saying these, you
know, somewhat unprecedented things to, to the entire world
about his team. And, and then on top of that, it
also instills confidence in the institution and, and donors and
those who are investing in the program.
So it, it stretches across a lot of different, you know, groups
of people and, and, and I think he, it, it kind of shakes people
awake. And I think that's kind of what
he's trying to do. Yeah, I know.
I think so. I mean, there's a couple of
different ways. I think you got to look at this
from a, a psychological perspective and also from a, a
business perspective. So one of the things we've
talked about many times on this show is Kurt Signetti is a
proven coach at levels slightly below where Indiana is AT.
And will that translate has always been a question, but it
feels like it will. And in large part because not
only is does he have a track record, but he's got a really
good staff that also has a track record.
And, you know, we've seen a lot of coaches follow a similar
trajectory and have success at higher levels.
Caitlin de Boer probably being the most recent example of a guy
who came from relative obscurity in a short period of time to now
being literally at the top of the coaching profession, it
feels like within college sports, or at least with college
football. So I think to some degree, a lot
of a lot of what Signetti is doing is getting conflated in a
couple of different ways. So you've got IU fans who many
of whom have decided that they're still going to have a
wait and see approach about IU football, which is very
reasonable and actually ties in with a question that assembly
call asked us that we'll tackle a little bit later on.
Signetti is coming in and making a a lot of noise.
Now. Why is he doing that?
We know what's the purpose of of him doing that.
And a lot of it is to give fans and donors a reason to get
excited. And it almost to some degree
feels like IU like it's being done in a different way than I
us really ever had. And I think it's important to
remember, like, you know, there was excitement that gradually
started to build around the Kevin Wilson era, but it never
really got to the point where people were that excited because
Wilson was really, as I've said before, and I respect Kevin
Wilson's football mind, but he was kind of a technocrat.
Like he just wasn't, he was not a rah rah guy.
He was a system guy. And you can get excited about
the potential or the, the, the results when they happened, but
Kevin Wilson wasn't going to make you reach into your pocket
and buy tickets all by himself. Tom Allen was kind of like like
the kind of guy who you thought would do that, but Allen made
you feel better about being an IU fan, but not necessarily
confident about being an IU fan. You were supposed to buy into
the Leo persona and this idea that, well, we care for each
other and that's how we're going to win games.
And that that work when he had great football minds working for
him. And then it it didn't work as
well when when his best assistants left and and you
started to have kind of the fall off in terms of the actual on
field performance. So Signetti is an interesting
spot because you've got to get this fanbase galvanized because
you've got to get people in the stands, you've got to start
building interest in IU football 'cause you got to get money for
NIL, 'cause that's how you recruit.
You've also got to make this seem like an attractive place
for players and taking the nice route from a verbal perspective
is not going to get a lot of attention.
I mean, I'll use Northwestern as an example.
Is there any buzz around Northwestern football right now?
There's none like and, and and that's in in part.
And you know, Pat Fitzgerald, in his own way, he, you know, he
kind of had this iconoclastic, like, I'm going to be the old
look. I mean, even though I'm young,
I'm gonna look like the old dude.
I'm gonna be the old school dude.
We're gonna get a particular type of lunch pail player at
this expensive private university on the shores of
Lake, MI. Like that was the vibe that he
was trying to put off. If you're in the bottom echelon
of the Big 10, you've got to do something to try to separate
yourself in terms of the image. PJ Fleck.
People don't like the row the boat stuff.
They don't like the kind of, you know, carnival Barker, like, you
know, tent preacher revival thing that you get out of PJ
Fleck. But the reason he does it is
what other possible reason would a player have to be like, I
wanna go play for the Golden Gophers.
I wanna go. They think about Minnesota, they
think about PJ Fleck and what, like he was at Western Michigan
before that. Why would anybody do that?
Well, it's because of Row, the Boat, things like that.
Exactly. And so I think to some degree,
if you don't like the, you know, the, and this was not what
Patrick asked, I just want to clarify, we're going to get to
the, the meat of the question. But I think in general, if you
don't like the approach that Signetti's taking, I guess ask
yourself, would you rather that he took the row the boat
approach, you know, and come up with a hokey slogan?
To some degree, we've already had that with Tom Allen.
I mean, Leo Elio was essentially a, a landlocked version of Row
the boat. And, and so I think that's
important to keep in mind. Now, as far as the idea of did
this put a target on IU or did his comments at the football
game or the basketball game back in December about Michigan and
Ohio State, did it like put a bullseye on IUI?
Would love to get your perspective on this, Taylor.
My perspective on it is I don't think it matters a bit.
I think a lot of this stuff fans react to and yeah, sure.
I mean, foot athletes in general and coaches in general, it's
like what we're searching for any scrap of motivation we can
use and da, da, da, da. I've always wondered, does that
really matter? Unless you do something like,
you know, burn their stadium down or, you know, like insult,
you know, all of their family members, It doesn't feel like
that stuff really resonates or, or penetrates the environment
where you're actually playing the football game.
Most of it just seems like media fodder that fans can get upset
about. And yeah, players are going to
be like, well, yeah, we felt disrespected without necessarily
even actually having felt disrespected.
Now, maybe I'm way off. You've been in locker rooms a
lot more recently than I have covering teams.
You've you've talked with coaches a lot more like how do
they, how, how does a Michigan or Ohio State or other teams in
the conference process a coach like Signetti and what they say
and how they say it, does it really even resonate with them?
Yeah, yeah, No, I I didn't make my point well enough earlier
when I said the coaching world is small.
They know who these guys are. Like that's they know who he is.
Like it probably did not surprise them that, that he took
that approach. But also like, I don't, I don't
think, I don't think coaches, I don't think Orion Day is
overlooking Indiana. Like I don't, I don't think that
happens very often in in the 1st place.
So I don't think especially with you know, how how attentive to
detail a lot of the a lot of the coaches are not even just head
coaches, but just the assistants.
I don't I don't think anybody is allowing anybody to overlook an
opponent in like Ohio State's locker room and and in their
offices. So I don't I don't think him
saying that necessarily puts any extra emphasis on the week the
teams are playing Indiana. I think they already, they
already know who Signetti is. And they and, and also, you
know, Ohio State has had issues with, with Indiana.
Obviously Michigan lost Indiana in 2020.
But I, I, I don't, yeah, I don't think that they're taking these
teams lightly like Indiana. Yeah.
It's just a lot of it is fans get worked up and a lot of
people I think assume, and this happens with this is a tough
thing. I think once you start covering
sports and you're you're involved in, in listening to
athletes talk and listening to coaches talk.
Like fans get really upset when players don't feel as
emotionally invested in a rivalry game or a game as they
the fans do. And and yet, you know, you have
to think about it from the perspective of football's
complicated, basketball's complicated.
You'd almost, you don't want your players to be emotional,
you know, balls of energy. Maybe occasionally you do like a
kick returner, sure. But in terms of like somebody
having to execute what they're doing out there, Like, you don't
really want them being real mad about what's going on across the
field. And we see that in games a lot
of the time where it's like trying to get your opponent on
edge is an important thing. I don't think it makes you study
any harder or be any more focused on beating Indiana.
And like you said, I don't see this being a situation where a
team's like, you know what, we were gonna, we were just gonna
not pay attention to Indiana. But hey, Kurt Signetti said we
suck and now we have to go pay more attention to them.
I don't really think that that's how it works.
And so look, ultimately Signetti's, he's got to write
some checks and you know, inevitably there's going to be a
couple of games where the checks bounce and that's fine.
You know what's what's key here? And I guess the one thing I
would add on to what I said earlier about you got to get
fans and boosters excited about IU football because you got to
get some juice around the program.
You've got to get your players believing that, you know what
you're doing and that what you're selling them is what they
can use in a game to win. And, and that is ultimately, you
know, it, a lot of it is flipping the script and not
letting your players, not having your players believe that they
are inferior to any of their opponents.
And frankly, it it's kind of felt that way over the course of
many of the past years with IU football where IU went into some
games and just looked like they didn't believe that they should
have been in there in contention.
And you've got to change that mentality.
That is, that is the 5% that you're really looking for.
And that intrinsic motivation is almost more important than any
external motivation that you might be providing the
opposition. Yeah, and I think it's also the
way, you know, Gaylord, I know you and I have talked about this
outside actually I think we've talked about it on the podcast.
But you know, the head coach is taking a more more of Aceo role
in in things now. And I think this is definitely
the way that a lot of coaches will communicate as as like the
CEO, 'cause, you know, he could say these things, but that's
because he's confident in his staff's ability to execute their
system. Yeah, I mean not train the
players to understand the system.
Yeah, and and that's the work in progress that we're we should be
the most focused on. And the thing that the I guess
what cracked me up the most about Big 10 media day was how,
you know, this is so predictable because I'm old enough that I
watch Bob Knight do this all the time.
Signetti gets up there and does the Kurt Signetti Comedy Hour
and that's all anybody talked about now.
And it had the desired effect. Jake Butts going on the the post
conference analysis. He's like, you know what stood
out? Kurt Signetti.
And to some degree, it almost, you know, it's almost to what
Patrick asked, it almost takes the focus off the team and puts
it on the coach. And that can be helpful because
then the players are almost able to operate under a veil of
anonymity to some degree because all the attention is on the guy
who is grabbing the attention. And that's a good thing.
That's that's actually a time honored coaching tradition.
Yeah. And is it a risk?
Yeah, it's it's a risk Like he could come out, you know, not
looking great because he was so confident in the team's ability
to to execute. And if they if they don't, if
like say they're not competitive against Ohio State and he said
that they were going to beat them.
Same with Michigan. Or or maybe they just, you know,
don't play to a lot of fans expectations, then yeah, it it
looks a little embarrassing, but I don't think it's Yeah, I think
it's I think it's what he should be doing right now.
Yeah, well, I mean, what you're right, it's embarrassing and as
much as well, maybe they maybe they'll get blown out by a
couple of teams or maybe they maybe they won't actually be
that great this year. That's fine.
I mean, at the end of the day, the bravado still needs to be
there. You need to set the foundation.
Even if the results don't come immediately, it'll be
disappointing, but it's certain that that's all that it is.
If it's just embarrassing, that's fine.
No problem at all. Let's let's jump over and let's
tackle assembly calls question since it kind of ties into this.
As a wise owl once said, when you look at someone through rose
colored glasses, all the red flags just look like flags.
I've never actually heard that saying before.
It's from. Bojack.
Yeah, It's from Bojack Horseman. OK, That I appreciate it.
I appreciate it. You're here to help translate
these things for me. I, I, I, I missed that one.
If things don't go as expected this football season, what do
you think we'll look back on as a red flag that we aren't
worrying about now during these this Sig 4 Korea stage?
Yeah, Yeah, there I think there's I think there are, you
know, multiple, but I think a lot of because of the you know,
a lot of people are concerned. Like one of the things that
people are concerned, like most concerned about right now is the
the translation of talent and and and you know, the
quarterbacks, people are concerned about the
quarterbacks. And, you know, I would say, you
know, if we, if a lot of people, including myself, are very
excited about the improvement that we saw last year in the
offensive line from Bob Bozab. But if you know, what if there's
not that much improvement in Carter Smith from last year, He
was he was, you know, decent, but you would hope that he's
better in his sophomore year from his freshman year.
What if Trey Wettig, what do you know, if there's a reason
Wisconsin let him go, you know, and didn't, you know, offer him
a bigger bag or, you know, made him second string last year like
in in we know Mike Kadik, but you know, he hasn't played a ton
of centre. He has more experience than
anybody else, but he hasn't played a ton of centre.
So what if the offensive line isn't as effective as as a lot
of people believe it is? And I think I think it will be.
I think it'll be more effective than last year.
But you know, I don't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't say that
the offensive line is solved and and I think the the guards are
definitely concerning. But, you know, if, if, if the
offensive line is not as effective as, as, as a lot of
people believe that it might be, including myself, then that
would be something where, you know, if, if IU doesn't play
super well, especially offensively in 2024, we will
look back and say, well, yeah, I guess logically that makes sense
cause 'cause it was in rough shape, you know, just last
season. So I think that that that would
probably be the the one where I'm like, yeah, not a lot of
people are talking about offensive line concerns at the
moment. I I agree.
I mean, I will say I don't know if there are any red flags we're
missing because I think we've talked about most of the
potential red flags, at least on this podcast and you on bite
sized bison. I think we've covered most of
the potential red flags already. Like I think the, you know, to
me, the the answer to this is, is less about what we're missing
that we should have caught and it's more what we are wagering
will happen that might not happen.
And I actually, we got some questions on The Last Podcast
about why is the media ranking Indiana 17th or 18th in the Big
10? You know, why are they being,
why are they basically being relegated to the bottom of the
Big 10? And my answer when I fielded
that was, if you'll recall, because media are going to rely
on what they've seen most recently from these teams and
then try to order them because much as you'd like to, you're
probably not going to project into the future for every team.
Now, you'll do it for like the top three, you know, so like it,
it's easy to project what Ohio State is likely to do given the
level of talent they've got. And and then it's like, well,
how do I project what like AUSC or an Oregon is going to do,
given that I don't have a lot of common things to keep in mind.
But you'll do that. You'll do go through that
exercise for those teams. You're not going to go through
it for like the bottom eight teams in the conference.
And even, I mean, you did this just with the graph that you
were doing on, on the Substack where you were talking about the
kind of upper and lower bounds that each team might have in the
conference. And with IUI think, you know,
that really it comes down to are they going to be better
significantly in the areas that we think that they're going to
get better like you said? And also how do they end up?
How does that level of talent and execution relate to what
other teams that are question marks are able to do?
And many of them are on the schedule for IU.
You know, the the question is less, is Indiana going to be
better? Is it it's more like are they
going to be good enough relative to Northwestern that they could
travel on the on the road and beat Northwestern?
Is Washington really going to be able to restock with a brand new
coach? Will they have their legs under
them by the time they come to Bloomington where Indiana at
their best would not be good enough to beat Washington is
Nebraska. Everybody has predicted
Nebraska's going to be like a nine win, 10 win team.
Everybody thinks Matt Ruhl is is it.
And yet I, I would actually argue you could, you could say
that there's more hope being put into Nebraska projections based
entirely on the coaches profile and the brand name of Nebraska
then has anything to do with what's actually on the field for
them, 'cause I just, I have yet to see anything substantial that
makes me think, Oh yeah, that's a team that's gonna do better
than the five and seven or six and six that we've gotten used
to them doing. So I think it's really about the
relative levels of expectations to answer Jared's question
rather than necessarily red flags were missing.
Yeah, Yeah, I want, I want to add some things to what you said
like nothing, nothing really different, just further detail.
But the yeah, though you're right, like UCLA is a great
example of this. We expect UCLA to not be very
good, but I think they'll be better than what a lot of people
think they will be. But also, what if they're good?
You know, like what, what if, what if UCLA is actually good?
But the The thing is like, you could ask that about a lot of
these teams. You could ask that about
Maryland. They they have a salt, they have
like kind of a solid defense. And you could ask about
Washington. Washington is one that I think a
lot of IU fans need to be careful with because they're the
most similar to IU and in this conference when it comes to what
happened last season to last season.
But with a much higher level. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah. So they they, you know, Jed Fish
is a good, a really good coach. What he did at Arizona was
pretty incredible. And then he brings a lot of
Arizona pieces over. Just like Curse Igneti brought a
lot of JMU pieces, but James Madison's in the Sunbelt.
Arizona was in the PAC 12. And so there, yeah, there's, you
know, when it comes to Washington, I think that's a
really, actually a really good barometer.
Even though they're like runners up last year for in the playoff.
I think that's a good barometer for for comparison for Indiana
just, you know, maybe not necessarily the exact same
level, but I think, you know, I think Washington's going to be
decent. I don't think they're going to
be bad. And and so, but also I don't
know. So that's how that's how it is
with a lot of these teams. And so that I think that's a
really good point, Galen, about, you know, everybody has a
different expectation for different teams in the Big 10,
just like you were talking about with Nebraska, like we don't
even know. We'd like like you were saying,
like what what is what is the tangible proof that they are
going to be better this year besides having a 5 star freshman
quarterback on the roster now? And, you know, but also they
could be, you know, like it's it's I haven't really seen the
big 10 like this that that I can remember where there's so much
uncertainty. And I think probably the
transfer portal has a lot to do with that.
But also, you know, just coaching changes and things like
the Michigan State could be good.
I know that's the thing. Yeah, we're everybody's, you
know, they've, you're, you've, they're counting them out.
I mean, there's so much mix. I feel the only thing I feel
confident in is that Purdue's not going to be very good and
and and. Yeah.
Everything else feels like it's on the table, you know,
including Indiana being good or not good.
And, you know, that's why I'm, I'm not going to do my
projections yet. But I, you know, the, that, that
parameter of like wins, you know, to me, like Indiana's got
as big of a spread as any of the teams in the conference because
we just don't know what's going to happen yet when the rubber
hits the road. And I don't know that we're
going to find out a whole lot in the first couple of weeks.
That's going to be the, the big question.
I mean, I am, I am kind of curious how Indiana plays in
that first game because you know, we a a lot of times we've
we've tended in the past to just write off the non conference
games against F like non non power competition as wins.
And you know, most of the time that's right.
But if you think about like some of the experiences Indiana's had
in the past, even with good teams playing against like a
Florida International being a great example, I mean, what
forget what year that was. If it was 2017 or 2018, where
what was that year? It was 2018, Indiana, Indiana,
you know, they only won against Florida International by by 10
points that year. And I think it was, I want to
say maybe 2016. They, that was a close game for
a little while. It wasn't like Indiana blew them
out like right from the get go. It ended up being about a 20
point win. But even games like that, and
that's a live opponent like that's, it's not like you're,
you're not playing FCS SE in in the the video game.
Although that's a bad example cause apparently FCS SE like has
beaten a bunch of teams so far in, in other people's dynasties.
But it's going to be an interesting on ramp because
again, your first game in the big 10 is against the UCLA team
that has as many questions, one could argue as Indiana does.
New coach, weird, weird vibe around the program right now and
and a fan base that is historically not terribly
plugged in. Who knows what that Rose Bowl
situation is going to look like. It could be really interesting.
I want to add another one too, that that might be a red flag
that we're not thinking about right now, which is and some
people are, but what how how does the passing attack mesh
wants the season is is here because that that I'm doing a
wide receivers preview for by sized Bison pretty soon and I'm
looking at the talent. There's plenty of talent there.
There's plenty of experience there.
Same with Curtis Rourke, but you know, Curtis Rourke has some
question marks coming into the season after last season not
being his 2022 self. And but also from what we saw in
the spring game, like they're they're they were not on the
same page, which is to be expected.
But what if what if they just never are?
Like what what if, what if it's never as electric as, you know,
a previous James Madison passing attack was or like the talent
shows. And so I think that's that's
another one as well, But I just want to throw that in there for
I. Think it's worthwhile 11 last
question. We're gonna hold off on the
depth chart questions until the next time we do one of these.
We will do another one of these soon.
So we're we're not ignoring the questions, but Jim Hoff had a
good one. I thought he said Athlon's
college football preview opposing Big 10 coach said
quote. If you're setting reasonable
year one expectations, I'd look for them to build an offensive
identity to help recruiting. Do you agree with this premise?
If So, what offensive identity do you expect the the?
Premise of building an offensive identity to help in recruiting.
Like that, like that being a reasonable, I think what that
this is the opposing coach who I think is probably trying to say,
don't expect to come out and win seven or eight games, but lay
the groundwork for recruiting. And then the next season.
And they're saying that the way to to set reasonable
expectations is you're going to play offense this way.
That's going to help you in recruiting because now you can
show recruits, this is what we're doing.
So that's that's I think what he's asking.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think, I think Curt
Cignetti is, is obviously trying to win in year one.
It's really hard to win in year one.
I think, yeah, I, I think you're just trying to build an identity
on, on, I mean, on either side of the ball to to help with
recruiting. I think, you know, Galen, you
and I have talked about this as well, but on the defensive side,
that defensive line is probably not where they want it to be.
And so how, how do you get it? It's going to take a little bit
of time. And so eventually, I think that
defensive line is going to be one that really rushes the
passer. I mean, it could be this year,
but I it depends on the translation of talent, but the
building an offensive identity is probably how this program is
going to be known after this season.
So I guess maybe, maybe, maybe from from that perspective,
yeah. The because you're going to have
Curtis Rourke, you're going to have Donna Nicola, you're going
to have Elijah Serrat. But the as far as you know like.
I don't know. Like yeah, I don't know.
I don't. I'm not sure exactly how to
answer it. I guess I would say this in
response to Jim's question. I think in a pre portal college
football that answer makes a lot of sense.
But I think like we've seen, what is it, 3035 new faces that
have come in for Indiana, a larger number came in for
Washington. Like you can, you can sell
people on a vision and an identity offense wise through
the film that you've accrued in your past stops.
I think that's what Indiana largely did here with what they
did in the transfer portal in the offseason.
I think that's more important to some degree than than take your
lumps your first year, but show that you're doing XY and Z
'cause I mean, we saw this during the Kevin Wilson era.
Like that offense didn't look great the first two years and
then it suddenly started looking pretty good when they started to
get the talent in the right spots and, and they got better
line play. And I, you know, I look at it
from the perspective I, I, you know, if, if I'm a coach and I'm
thinking about things the way that they've been historically,
you're thinking, well, this Indiana rebuild's probably going
to take three years to really get up and running.
And AII don't know that it has to take that long for Indiana to
compete for six or seven or even eight wins simply because the
schedule this year is very favorable.
I think if if if Signeti was starting next year with next
year's schedule, that's a different story.
But he's not, you know, so you have to factor that in.
I also think, like as you said, the, you know, the way that the
defense plays at this point feels very critical to Indiana
because when Indiana has struggled the most over the
course of the really the, well, almost its entire history, but
especially the last 25 or so years, it's tended to struggle
more on the defensive side. And it's harder to attract
people to a defense that looks like it's constantly getting
bent over. And you know, if you can show
that Indiana can can play solid defense, I think you build both
confidence in that unit and you it allows you to recruit out of
the portal and recruit incoming players at a higher level.
It does feel like the coaches already are doing that.
I mean, I don't know what your analysis is of the existing
recruiting on the defensive side, but it almost feels like
that's going better than the offensive recruiting in some
ways. I mean, I'm not sure if you'd
agree with that, but that's kind of how it's felt to me.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, like 'cause the the
defensive backs that that recruiting has been fantastic.
So, yeah, yeah, I think, you know, I think yeah, I, I, I
think offensive identity to to help in recruiting I think is
probably not, not not the way that that I would say that.
But but yeah, I think this is just offensive idea and you
know, focus on recruiting. But but I, I don't, I don't see
an offensive identity being the path toward better recruiting
like you were saying, because the defensive side has been, has
been actually going OK. And the 2026 class is the one
that's going to be the big one. So, you know, maybe if you want
to focus on the offensive side of the ball, sure.
But yeah, I, I, I I don't think so.
This is, it's funny because it's kind of like this is where the,
This is why I don't buy Athlon. I always skip the Athlon preview
to some degree 'cause I was always like, I'm not sure if I
really buy what I'm getting out of this, but I am curious to see
what reasonable expectations are in the first year and what like
what will actually work when the rubber hits the road on these
things 'cause it is. It is a bit of an open question,
but I do think that ultimately it feels like that that
particular answer just feels like an answer that is more of
an of a past era thing rather than being something that
Indiana necessarily has to think about doing right now.
But who's who knows, this is where the uncertainty that we
talked about earlier comes in. And we'll just, we'll have to
see what happens. Anyway, any final thoughts,
Taylor, we'll go ahead and wrap up here.
But any anything else that you've got?
No, no, that's that that like I said, I'm going to have a wide
receivers preview coming out pretty soon.
It's a position I haven't talked about a whole lot because a lot
of people are very excited about it.
So, you know, I'll, I'll, you know, send that out and and
yeah, you know, subscribe to buy Size Bison.
Yes, please do that and we'll have more work with with Taylor
coming up soon as we talk through some more items.
We'll talk depth chart next time.
We'll talk about positional battles and the kinds of things
we need to look at as we go through fall camp as we get
ready for this first game as Indiana getting ready to start
the 2024 football season. So, Taylor, my thanks to you for
taking the time to join us again, folks, if you're watching
this and it's the 31st, let's let's yeah, get the
subscriptions in and we'll look forward to spending some more
time with you as we talk through IU football.
Taylor, thanks again for joining us and thanks to all you folks
for watching or listening. Be sure to subscribe to the
YouTube channel in the back Home Network.
Our thanks to Home Field Apparel.
We will catch you folks. On the flip side, I'm Galen
Clavio, bring back the bison. So long, everybody.